Man... I hate having this conversation. There are some key points that go against the narrative of climate change and deserve further research. I don't mean go read climate papers by modern scientists, I mean look at the raw data that exists and decide for yourself. Modern Scientists are only basing their models off of the last 100,000 years or so, some (very few) go back a million, but the earth is 4.5-4.6 billion years old, vertebrates on land have been a thing for at least 400-million years, dinosaurs only died 65 million years ago, and mammals have existed for the past 200 million years at least. So how can people using such a small amount of the available data be qualified to let us know what's going on? Why are they choosing to focus on that small of a window? It's like using yesterday's Covid data from a single hospital to dictate how the pandemic should be handled, it's just not the correct way of doing it.
The key takeaways are this:
-We are currently in an Ice Age, it's called the Quaternary Glaciation Period, it has had several Glacial Periods (where ice caps are growing) and Inter-Glacial periods (where ice caps are melting).
-We are currently in an Inter-Glacial period within the Ice Age, but, that Ice Age (which started ~4.5million years ago) is also starting to end.
-Humans have only ever lived during an Ice Age, however, we have adapted to live in all kinds of climates by way of Heating, Cooling, and Clothing.
-Taking into account Earth's entire history, being in a greenhouse period (opposite of Ice Age, which means no ice caps) is the norm. This also holds true if you look at only the period where complex life occurs, and even if you're only interested in Land roaming Vertebrates, hell it's even true for the period of time since the dinosaurs. Ice Ages, while inevitable, are not the Earth's "normal", it's only the "human normal".
-At no time during geologic history did CO2 ever play a role in global warming. In fact, this is the first time ever where the two are in sync with one another. It also happens that we're at one of the lowest recorded atmospheric CO2 readings in the history of the Planet.
It is true that CO2 is rising, and it's rising fast, but not at unprecedented speeds. It's also true that the temperature is rising, fast, but again, not at unprecedented speeds. For what it's worth I am a dual Major in History and Geology with a certificate in Geographic Information Systems, nearly every class I take is trying to cram down my throat the Climate Change narrative, but quite a few of the professors in the GeoSciences department are much more level headed about the conversation. Once I complete my Masters degree, I fully intend to pursue a Ph.D.
Please don't misunderstand me though, I am not a part of the "Do nothing" crowd, there are plenty of reasons to pursue green energy; air quality and pollution are chief among them. Those should be reason enough to pursue such matters. But I am quite sick of the climate narrative that is attempting to scare people. Because the truth of the matter is, we're heading into earth normalcy, not doomsday territory. We should be focusing on what we're going to do during this upcoming greenhouse period rather than focusing on how to stop it from happening; because it's going to happen regardless of what we do. Even if we want to quibble about whether it's happening faster because of humans, it's still an inevitable event we will face as a species. We should be preparing our shorelines with dikes and levees to prevent coastal city floods, and we should be focusing on research for crop yields in higher-temp/higher co2 conditions. I wholly expect populations of all living things to decrease, and some will likely be replaced by others that are adapted to the "new" conditions. But again, this is a normal part of planet earth, and will happen regardless of our actions.
The source is cited at the bottom of the first chart, the second is just to give you an idea of when ice ages occur. (Notice the dip right after 200million years ago is not considered an ice age, because we didn't reach the qualifications for an ice age even though there was a sharp dip in temperature).
