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The Environment / Re: What are the implications of climate change and what do we need to do to stop it?
« on: 13/08/2016 11:55:48 »Why has the earth not gone down this road in the past when the temperature was much higer than now often with very much higher levels of CO"?
Evidence suggests that it has in fact happened. Runaway climatic events most likely contributed to the Permian–Triassic extinction event which killed off a good portion of life everywhere and the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum which killed off mostly life in the oceans.
Of course in neither of those situations was there a complex life form that evolved to dominate the planet with 6-7 billion individuals relying on the climate to be exactly as it is so that the delicate technological system that supports such a large population can function. Climate change probably won't lead to human extinction but that is hardly the worst thing that could happen to us.