Ghengis Khan Cut a Year's Worth of CO2 Emissions

In the modern age, there are so many sources of pollution that nobody really stops and thinks that humans too, on their own, can contribute to Al Gore's paranoia. However, someone, somewhere did ask themselves a simple question: do humans, by simply existing, kill the planet?

Following a comprehensive study conducted by the Department for Global Ecology at Stanford University, the answer became obvious: yes, they do, and the more they are, the worse it gets.

Now, the study itself is a freak of nature. The goal of the entire endeavor was to see if humans had an impact on carbon dioxide by just being on this planet. Using a detailed reconstruction of historical agriculture, the scientists looked at four major events in between the years 800 and 1850: the Mongol invasion in Asia, the Black Death in Europe, the conquest of the Americas and the fall of the Ming Dynasty.

Looking at the aftermath of the Mongol invasion, the scientists found that all the bloody killing, hacking and slashing performed so assiduously by Ghengis Khan and his hordes were actually a good thing.

Adding the numbers, the study showed that it was all for the good of the planet, considering the invasion of oil burning vehicles centuries later. According to The Science Monitor, the people killed back then (from 1200 to 1380) played their part and saved the world about the same amount of carbon dioxide emitted today in an entire year of motoring.

Or, in numbers none of us understand, Ghengis decreased global carbon dioxide by 0.1 part per million. Will the Volt be able to match that?