Race Reed April 24, 2026 The Columbian Exchange Continued (Outside Reading)

 After writing about the Columbian Exchange earlier in the semester based on what Professor Redick mentioned in class, I went back and read more about it on my own and there was a lot I hadn't fully absorbed the first time. One thing that really stood out was the role of disease. When Europeans arrived in the Americas, the Indigenous populations had no immunity to diseases like smallpox, measles, and influenza. Some historians estimate that up to 90 percent of the Indigenous population of the Americas died within a century of contact, not primarily from violence but from disease.

That scale of loss is almost impossible to comprehend. And it had ecological consequences too, because so much traditional land management, burning, planting, harvesting, stopped almost overnight. Some researchers argue that the regrowth of forests following this depopulation actually contributed to a cooling of global temperatures in the 1600s. The Columbian Exchange was not just a historical event, it reshaped the planet in ways we are still trying to understand.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kip Redick Introduction

  Welcome to the Introduction to Environmental Studies 2026 blog. To post,   click “new post” to start your entry, you will then be able to write your blog. Make sure to start the blog with your name and the subject of the entry (just as you see in the title of this post. Blog entries will be considered informal writing assignments and as such will be graded more in relation to content than style. Blog entries will contain questions and answers to questions, as well as reflections which relate to daily classroom discussions, completion of exercises, and reading assignments.   Any questions the student has when reading or completing assignments should be written in their blog.   Reflections may relate to connections the student makes between discussions in this class and those in other classes, between arguments raised in the readings in this class and those raised in other classes or in informal conversations.   Students are encouraged to apply the ideas learned...
Read more

Kip Redick Student's Free Choice Example

  Here is an example which would be a free choice entry.    Since last semester, I have been on e-board for the Green Team at CNU. I am the sustainability and research chair and my role is to make campus more green and sustainability which is challenging because CNU tends to be stubborn and not want to change. Although I have been struggling to do my job and change things, I have gotten so much insight from the other Green Team members because we come from different customs and view points. We have bonded over our love for the environment and our need to change. We have our own rituals were we try to connect with nature through meditation, yoga, and reciting poems and sharing ideas. We have a big/little system called Oaks and Acorns in order for new members to know how the group works and become close to each other. Green Team is not dominated by one class, one religion, or one race. That is why I love this organization so much. We are all accepted and brought...
Read more

Kip Redick Example of a Student's Choosing

  This is an example of a topic of the student's choosing.   During the summer of 2022, I attended an environmental encounters trip to Iceland with Dr. Kip Redick, Dr. Joe Balay, and 14 other students. It was a two week trip, but those short two weeks completely changed my life. I learned about more things than I thought was possible in 14 days, and I've never been more interested in learning before. It completely opened my eyes to a whole new perspective, on how the world should live, and what the environment should look like. Everyone was so kind, and they are the most environmental conservative countries.  While there, we did many different activities, including hiking on a glacier. It was so fun, but exhausting and kind of sad at the same time. It was obvious to see how much the glacier have had melted in the past years due to global warming, as there was a large glacial lake at the bottom with melted ice, and the glacier was all rock and sediment before w...
Read more