"Over the course of the century and a half run of the Mongol Empire, about 22 percent of the world's total land area had been conquered and an estimated 40 million people were slaughtered by the horse-driven, bow-wielding hordes. Depopulation over such a large swathe of land meant that countless numbers of cultivated fields eventually returned to forests."Naturally, those ancient hordes being preferable to petro-fueled, machine gun wielding hordes.
Much of the data for the article was derived from a study issued by the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology. The authors triumphantly claim the effect of the estimated 40 million slaughtered by Khan & Co. scrubbed "around" 700 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere.
The theory being, civilization bad; primitive wilderness, good. Settled science.
No word, though, on "around" the effect upon the planet from all the CO2 and methane released from these rotting corpses, because that would be, you know, guess work. The report also made no mention of the cities built, farms cultivated, and silk roads constructed during the Khan clan's 150 year reign over a vast empire across the largest continent on the planet.
"Green" conquering hordes obviously have no need of such environmentally unsound necessities.
The settled scientists also studied such Gaia beneficial events as the Black Death in Europe, the fall of China's Ming Dynasty and the conquest of the Americas (huh?). Yet, Kahn's Mongol invasion was awarded the greenest accolade because "the longevity of the Mongol invasion made it stand out as having the biggest impact on the world's climate."
Yum. I smell "Soylent Green."
