On a planet 4C hotter, all we can prepare for is extinction

The Guardian ^ | Oliver Tickell

[marron]

To see how far this process could go, look 55.5m years to the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, when a global temperature increase of 6C coincided with the release of about 5,000 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, both as CO2 and as methane from bogs and seabed sediments

In other words, we've been here before, and it had nothing to do with us. And he rather fuzzes the question of which caused which; did the release of carbon cause the temperature rise, or did the temperature rise cause the release of carbon? It sounds like the latter. Temperature rises increase carbon release. So what caused the temperature rise?

Lush subtropical forests grew in polar regions, and sea levels rose to 100m higher than today.

That actually doesn't sound too bad. Whatever we give up in Maldive Island shoreline is more than made up by longer growing seasons in the Canadian and Siberian wheat fields. Sounds almost balmy.

[mainerforglobalwarming]

It was finally nice yesterday, but today it’s cloudy and cool. So much for that heat wave I’ve been waiting for.