The Role of Forests & the Mayan Calendar

Many have heard that 2012 is the last year of the Mayan Calendar and have interpreted that to mean end of the world. Maybe instead it is the year we explain what ended the Mayan world and help us contribute to today's world. Forests!

NEW YORK, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Mayans may have hastened the demise of their civilization by clearing forests, making an already naturally drying climate drier, U.S. scientists say.

Prolonged drought is thought to have contributed to the eventual collapse of Mayan civilization in Mexico and Central America, and forest razing for cities and agriculture may have made matters worse, the researchers said.

"We're not saying deforestation explains the entire drought, but it does explain a substantial portion of the overall drying that is thought to have occurred," lead study author Benjamin Cook, a climate modeler at Columbia University, said.