Genghis Khan: The Eco Friendly World Conqueror

          I recently listened to a series of audio book regarding Genghis Khan and the territorial conquest of the Mongols. One of the points that really stuck with me was the claim that from about 1200-1380, the Mongol conquest killed so many people, and wiped out so many civilizations, that they effectively lowered the carbon foot print of the earth. I decided my blog for this week should be a follow up of this point.
          It seems that the legacy of Genghis saw a direct death toll of around 40 million people in the 13th and 14th centuries. A study conducted by Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Energy reported that this death toll equated to a reduction of "700 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is the amount emitted annually by worldwide gasoline demand today". The effect of wiping out civilizations on a conquest for global domination resulted in large swaths of land being made readily available for trees and vegetation to return, and thus resulted in the first ever "successful man-made global cooling".


 https://www.livescience.com/11739-wars-plagues-carbon-climate.html

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/jan/26/genghis-khan-eco-warrior

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1350272/Genghis-Khan-killed-people-forests-grew-carbon-levels-dropped.html