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Sequoia stump in California, U.S.A. (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
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I was looking through some old vacation pictures and came across this one. It sure gives a perspective on how big these trees are.

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[–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

Wait, did I miss something? When was the Amazon rainforest ever farmland during the lifetime of humanity?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Central, north, and south America have been home to humanity for tens of thousands of years. Did you think they all just lived in mud huts and worshiped the sun?

    The Amazon rainforest is less than 1000 years old. We know that because we can find 1000 year old human ruins built UNDER the rainforest. Did you think the first settlers to reach south America just lied about the cities and people's they found?

    (Edit: actually 2k years back is the start of the forest. It really took off after people left and the farmland went wild)

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Sorry, but that's just wrong. The Amazon rainforest is tens of millions of years old. Just think about the incredible amount of biodiversity, it could never develop in just 1000 years.

    If I'm wrong, please show me studies, but this doesn't pass the basic logic check.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/amazon-rainforest-is-much-younger-than-commonly-believed/

    You can think what you want but the science is there. People took grasslands and farmed them for generations, then died off and the forests took over. 1-2k years is nothing when it comes to geologic time.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    This is a single study, and it states that "that perhaps a fifth of the Amazon basin, in the south, may have been savannah until the shift, with forests covering the rest". So it's not that the forest was all farmland, there was farmland close to the forest and it grew to cover it. This is very different from what you're claiming.

    And again, it's not possible for such biodiversity to develop in such a short amount of time.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    My claim is that humanity made the Amazon rainforest what it is today. I stand by that, and my claim grows stronger with each new ancient city discovered under the trees.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    Yeah, I disagree. We didn't play an active part in doing this, we played a passive one by not fucking it up. I'm also not responsible for a mountain just because I don't dig it up.

    Even if you were right, your own study says that we'd at most be responsible for 1/5th.

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