Holocene Climate Catastrophes?
The Quest for Thylacoleo sometimes attracts "Green" hostility because we don't promote the popular line that the Earth is warming up, that the effects of alleged global warming will be catastrophic and that it's all the fault of ourselves, the human race, because our use of fossil fuels pumps up CO2 in the atmosphere. While I believe that "climate change" certainly is a reality, it is a part of the "natural" state of our Earth and has, of course,always been so.
However, that is not to say that climate change is in any way "safe". I have come to perceive that abrupt, yet comparatively minor, climate shifts have brought about the demise of entire civilisations in historical times. More major climate "events" have caused mass extinctions of many species, including near-human "cousins" with whom we shared our world in the not-too-distant past. Moreoever, it appears that such events may hav been more or less synchronous along common latitudes in both hemisphere. It's possible to speculate that quasi-regular cycles in the Earth's climate act as a "pump primer" that selects for technological innovation in agriculture and in warfare among some societies in some circumstances, whilst at the same time devastating most societies in most circumstances.
We can perhaps discern something of what may lie in wait for us by the study of former societies that experienced abrupt climate change catastrophes in the past. Did they perceive their own vulnerabilities? Were they able to adapt and change and innovate in hopes of survival? Or did they, like many today, pin their hopes upon their gods and magic incantations?
The themes that I outline here will be contentious because they will, to some extent, contradict conventional wisdom and vested interests in many ways. Arguments for and against will be complex and technical. Much research that could clarify matters has yet to be done but may never be done, for reasons which we may be able to guess at. I would only hope to ask pertinent questions and draw a "bare bones" outline of my case.
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