From a long term geological perspective the planet Earth has spent more time as an ice cube than being warm. The sun is the the only factor that matters. No sunspots, no strong solar wind, increased space radiation, leads to a cooler earth (see The Chilling Stars book).
Global warming is actually a good thing. Imagine modern societies dealing with a modern ice age. Everyone one would migrate to the equator, what a mess.
“Everyone would migrate to the equator, what a mess.”
Everyone would fight to live near the equator - what a bigger mess. I suppose some folks might last for a little while in some type of biodomes in the southern U.S.. Think of Mad Max with parka’s.
The last 4 million yrs have been cold - the 61 million yrs before that were very warm.The 100 million yrs before that were very very warm. I think we have to go to the middle/end of the paleozoic to have prolonged ice ages. The end of the paleozoic was probably very warm.
Hockey stick notwithstanding, the period b/w 9K and 4500 yrs ago was also very warm, and the earth and humans did just fine.
Actually, that would be from a short to mid term geological perspective.
The earth is about 4 billion years old. Of this time, at most 700 to 800 million years have been in "ice ages," with the rest of the time there being no permanent ice caps except possibly at high altitudes.
This number is actually high, since the interglacials, such as we are presently in, within the larger span ice ages are included. The presence of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps today means we are classified as still being in an Ice Age.
OTOH, of the last 2M years, we've spent about 85% in periods with large continental glaciers, glacial periods, what is commonly meant when the term "ice age" is used.