That Franklin quote is only part of the story. Is Africa's reflectivity lower due to racial makeup?
Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. *And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People?* why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind. -- Benjamin Franklin, America as a Land of Opportunity, 1751. On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 6:28 PM, Russell Seitz <russellse...@gmail.com> wrote: > In March 2009 , I noted in<i>Foreign Affairs</i> > http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65159/russell-seitz/the-next-top-model > that > >> Geoengineering ... has been an integral part of the landscape of history. >> Although Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1751, > > >> >> "We are, as I may call it, scouring our planet, by clearing America of >> woods, and so making this side of our globe reflect a brighter light," > > >> >> little credit is due to young George Washington's hatchet work. Fire in >> the hands of Neolithic man had already transformed the ecology -- and the >> albedo -- of Australia and the Americas eons before. > > > Working in the opposite sense, by converting woodlands into black water > ponds, a Holocene population some population biologists estimate to have run > into the hundred millions globally, may have engaged in wholesale SRM by > darkening some millions of square kilometers before <i> H. sapiens</i> even > evolved. > > This unlicensed landscape transformation was perpetrated by Castor faber > in the old world and C.canadensis in the new. > > Ken also notes that " >>> >>> >>>> It is not clear to me that the language of "state shift"adds much to >>>> this review of threats to (mostly) land ecosystems. However, whether you >>>> think it is a "state shift" or not, we surely are impacting Earth's biota on >>>> a grand scale. >> >> >>> >> >> I fear Malcolm Gladwell's 'Tipping Point' trope is itself approaching the >> 'ONeilling Point', beyond which all use of an environmental cliche' is >> political. >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/geoengineering/-/3kwHS6VLVOsJ. > To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. -- James Fleming STS Program Colby College 5881 Mayflower Hill Waterville, ME 04901 Ph: 207-859-5881 Fax: 207-859-5846 Web: http://www.colby.edu/profile/jfleming -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
