Some 56 million years ago, just after the Paleocene epoch gave way to the Eocene, the world suddenly warmed. Scientists continue to debate the ultimate cause of the warming, but they agree on its proximate cause: A huge burst of carbon dioxide entered the atmosphere, raising Earth’s average temperature by 7 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), as this event is known, is “the best geologic analog” for modern anthropogenic climate change, said University of Wyoming paleobotanist Ellen Currano.
She studies how the PETM’s sudden warmth affected plants. Darwin famously compared the fossil record to a tattered book missing most of its pages and with all but a few lines obscured. The PETM, which lasted roughly 200,000 years, bears out the analogy. Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin is the only place on Earth where scientists have found plant macrofossils (visible to the naked eye, that is) that date to the PETM. The fossil leaves that Currano and her colleagues have found there paint a vivid portrait.
Before the PETM, […]
Meanwhile as our planet is dying the uber-rich are buying new toys to launch themselves on a thrill ride to the cosmos. So wonderous they claim it is and will be, so profitable as other wealthy customers will pay thousands to fly high above all the riff-raff, the masses of eaters. Is there any thinking person who imagines the rich pay sufficient taxes? How many homes, yachts, airplanes and now space ships do these masters’ of the universe need? Next it’s off to Mars with Elon’s super big space ship, he may not be first but he will out do them all.
On the other hand taking all that investment of talent, cash, engineering and materials directing it to preserving and renewing the planet….
I read about birds in the north eastern part of the USA coming down with an unknown illness which the scientists cannot figure out. I, myself have found two dead Robins dead in my yard with no apparent trouble with their wings or other parts of their body such as you would see if they were attacked by anything. I did not touch them. I just dug a hole and picked them up with a shovel to put them into the hole to burry them. I have no idea what killed them.