Progressive Politics

1191 readers

97 users here now

Welcome to Progressive Politics! A place for news updates and political discussion from a left perspective. Conservatives and centrists are welcome just try and keep it civil :)

(Sidebar still a work in progress post recommendations if you have them such as reading lists)

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

316

They knew. (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Alexander von Humboldt, the Father of Ecology/Environmentalism, noted the first "theories" of climate change back around 1800. He was a Prussian naturalist who was one of the most famous naturalists of his time (more things like parks, streets, etc, are named after him than anyone else in the world).

He explored a lot of the world, particularly South and Central America. While he was in Venezuela in 1799, he noted,

During Humboldt’s travels through Venezuela in 1799, he noticed that farmers in the Aragua valley were deforesting the region to grow indigo. As a result, the nearby lake was drying up. Later, in a letter to President Thomas Jefferson dated June 1804, he wrote, “The wants and restless activity of large communities of men gradually despoil the face of the Earth.”

Source

If you want to learn more about him, I highly recommend The Invention of Nature by Alexandria Wulf.