Climate change in geological time

One human life, 100 years. The last Ice Age, 20,000 years ago. When current oil, gas and coal reserves formed in the Age known as the Carboniferous… 300-360 million years ago. And the Earth, formed about 4.5 billion years ago.

Click on the image below to see a short and very interesting video from Probable Futures. Below are some transcribed excerpts. Science everywhere. So that you can draw your own conclusions.

“But weather wasn’t always so mundane. Earth’s atmosphere has changed grammatically over the last 4,5 billion years. And humans have only been around for a small part of that time.”

“In just the last 100 million years, the Earth has been both a little colder and a lot hotter than today.”

“Around 200 thousand BCE, the Earth was too cold ... But the cooler temperatures, favoured warm blooded mammals, like us.” … our first ancestors in Africa … “they moved constantly, partially in response to their environment. In their World, climate patterns were unstable.” … “Gradual changes in the Earth’s tilt and the orientation of its axis, caused glaciers to advance and retreat. Equal systems fluctuated between hot and cold, fertile and arid. This unstable climate made it too risky for humans to settle down.”

“Then, around 10 thousand BCE, people across completely disconnected communities, began to built communal settlements. This was the beginning of what we now call Civilisation.” … “Around that time, the atmosphere entered a period of stability with an average temperature that was just right for humans” … “This period was special. And brief. In fact, it represents just 6% of the time that humans have been walking the Earth. But people in the modern era have assumed this to be normal.”

“But in the last 250 years, humans have emitted so much carbon into Earth’s atmosphere, that the global average temperature is now higher than its been since the beginning of Civilisation. And if greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere continues to raise, the global average temperature will soon exceed that of any other time in human existence.” … “disrupting the predictable climate we’ve been thriving and ultimately everything we’ve built upon it.”

“When someone is unwell, we ask if if they have a fever. If their body is 1°C warmer, they are uncomfortable. 2°C warmer, they are suffering. And you’d care. More than that, their life is in danger."

“Our planet is already running a fever. We need to change.”

“We have the tools and the skills … using them effectively will take courage, hard work, imagination and - most importantly - a return to being aware of our climate”.