A news brief in Scientific American (subscriber only, no link) alerted me to the following article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060601091313.htm
Summarized:
Core sediments retrieved by three icebreakers recently analyzed reveal the following:
-North Pole’s temperature 55 million years ago: 23C/73F (today it is -20C/-4F)
-Concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 55mya was 2000 ppm (today it is 380 ppm)
-Global average temperature 55mya under above conditions was 5C/9F degrees C higher than today (in Sciam News Brief only, Science Daily says tropics remained liveable).
Obviously, the earth recovered, if it was even “harmed”. I post this because so-called global warming is blamed on human activities by the worst kind of consensus pseudoscience (Darwinian evolution is consensus pseudoscience as well) and is projected to be catastrophic. But look at this recent data. With carbon dioxide concentration 5 times higher than today the global average temperature rise is within normal year-to-year variation we all experience right now. The earth doesn’t turn into a runaway greenhouse. We don’t have enough fossil fuel on the planet to quintuple the CO2 in the atmosphere. It happens WITHOUT human activity. It’s NORMAL. Sea levels will rise. Ocean salinity will decrease. Life will go on thriving like it always has. Just like forest fires give certain species their turn at bat in the cyclically changing environment so too does global warming. These are the facts.