National Archives, Washington, D. C. Wood Splinter with a SINful report for Spoof International news. This reporter has uncovered notes in the archives here regarding a long-forgotten Greenhouse Summit held in 1801 with Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon, and George III meeting secretly on a neutral Spanish warship anchored off the Canary islands. The intent of the meting was to reduce the deadly emission of methane gas, primarily from the buffalo that inhabited areas of North America controlled by the three nations.
Records indicate that Jefferson was concerned that the 60 million buffalo occupying what is now the united States, but at that time was largely under the French flag, was a threat to civilization since bison were the largest emitters of methane, the most dangerous greenhouse gas. Jefferson urged a quick depletion of the bison herds, replacing them in part with low methane producing cattle.
George III noted that the wood bison, which populated large portions of eastern Canada, were already near extinction and offered to send hunting parties into the western plains beyond the Great Lakes to wipe out the herds there.
The French, who technically owned the Mississippi Valley, were amenable to the idea of wiping out their hers but internal strife at home and governmental financial difficulties prevented any immediate French buffalo-hunting expedition,. To that, Jefferson suggested that France might be interested in transferring their ownership of the valley to the United States. Napoleon was non-committal but said he would consider the idea.
Boatloads of protesters sailed as near as they could to the Spanish warship where the meeting took place, with signs calling for "Save the Buffalo," and "Cows emit more methane than Bison," and similar slogans. The head of the protest movement indicated that they wanted the U. S. to create a bison sanctuary, declaring the wood bison an endangered species and prohibiting the sale of government land to farmers, who would destroy the bison's habitat.
In light of the summit's notes, it is apparent that the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804 was primarily intended to take a census of the buffalo in the land just purchased from Napoleon. The homesteading of public land in the newly purchased area was intended in part to eliminate the buffalo, not for the benefit of the homesteaders but to reduce greenhouse gases.
