According to one theory, the process got under way eight or nine thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded history, when wheat was domesticated in the Middle East and rice in Asia. Early farmers set to clearing land for agriculture, and as they chopped and burned their way through the forests, carbon dioxide was released. The quantities involved were comparatively small, but, according to advocates of this theory, known as the “early Anthropocene hypothesis,” the effect was fortuitous. Owing to natural cycles, CO2 levels should have been falling during this period. Human intervention
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