Civilizational Collapse, Part 4

Re:Civilizational Collapse, Part 4 by beat on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @11:59AM (#20811073)

If we didn't have cattle, would we have buffalo? Large wild herbivores in general? (Hmm, results of a quick google... there were 30-60m buffalo in the 19th century, and there are 94m cows in the US today. Given relative size, methane output has probably been more or less static over that period.)

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Re:Civilizational Collapse, Part 4 by dredmorbius on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @01:16PM (#20812121)

That's a good question and I don't know.

The net terrestrial vertebrate biomass has shifted markedly over the past century (and undoubtedly over the previous 50,000 years of the Human Diaspora). What the pre-Columbian American bison population was I have no idea.

Total pre-industrial wildlife biomass ~10,000 BCE, by estimates, was ~1/7 that of the present, and smaller than humans in total:

http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Terrestr...

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Re:Civilizational Collapse, Part 4 by pnutjam on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @01:45PM (#20812469)

Some people think buffalo herds exploded when native Americans died off.

The herds may not have been that big pre-columbus.

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