Past Global Warming???

[Bruzilla]

http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051110-083624-9769r

Study: Past global warming altered forests

GAINESVILLE, Fla., Nov. 10 (UPI) -- The concept of Pennsylvania palmettos and magnolias in Minnesota may not be too far-fetched in view of research by a University of Florida paleontologist.

The research by vertebrate paleontologist Jonathan Bloch and colleagues suggests land plants changed drastically during a period of sudden global warming 55 million years ago.

"It indicates that should we have a period of rapid global warming on that scale today, we might expect very dramatic changes to the biota of the planet, not just the mammals and other vertebrates, but forests also completely changing," said Bloch.

Global warming allowed mammals to emigrate across northern land bridges, marking the first appearance of perissodactlys in the form of the earliest known horse; artiodactyls, a group of even-toed ungulates that includes pigs, camels and hippos; as well as modern primates, he said.

The theory is supported by excavations in northwestern Wyoming by team leader Scott Wing, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian Institution. They uncovered tropical fossil leaves and pollen alongside fossilized mammals in rocks that were deposited during that turbulent geologic interval.

The research is detailed in the current issue of the journal Science.


Who knew those 55,002,005 BC model year Chevys, Fords, and Chryslers were so smoggy! Was Bush's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Oooga W. Bush the President then?

 

[vraiblonde]

Oooga W. Bush

These enviro-wacks act like all this is going to happen in a minute or so, like some nuclear explosion. What they fail to mention is that, in archaeology/paleontology time, "sudden" means a period of 1,000 years or more.

The dinosaurs, for instance. You hear about how they "suddenly" became extinct, but it actually took a good million years or so from when their population started dwindling until complete extinction. And even then, they went species by species, not all wiped out at the same time.

Global warming is not worth worrying about and any kennedy who says it is is merely a fearmonger preying on peoples' ignorance.

 

[Toxick]

The dinosaurs, for instance. You hear about how they "suddenly" became extinct, but it actually took a good million years or so from when their population started dwindling until complete extinction. And even then, they went species by species, not all wiped out at the same time.

So I guess you don't buy into the "asteroid smashed into earth to destroy the dinosaurs" theory?

 

[SmallTown]

but it actually took a good million years or so from when their population started dwindling until complete extinction.

impossible. Don't you ever read your religion forms?

 

[vraiblonde]

So I guess you don't buy into the "asteroid smashed into earth to destroy the dinosaurs" theory?

No. The timeline isn't there. An enormous asteroid WOULD have been sudden - major alterations of the planet that would have happened too fast for the dinosaurs to adapt to. Plus that would have had to been a hell of an asteroid to effect ALL life all over the world. AND we know that birds and some other life forms (fish, plants and such) are prehistoric leftovers, so not all "dinosaurs" were killed off.

Boring old natural selection seems the most likely culprit. The ones that couldn't evolve into something more eco-friendly died off and new life forms took their place.

 

[ylexot]

Fox News is doing a report on global warming on Sunday at 8pm...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,174956,00.html

 

[soul4sale]

http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051110-083624-9769r
Study: Past global warming altered forests

I am so friggin sick of this debate.

Our residential development is causing runoff that is killing the Bay, our trucks and power plants are turning our ground-level air into suspended sludge, corporations in the Midwest are dicking with the genes of the grain we eat, our livestock are brimming with pesticides and hormones, our fish are collecting Mercury, and our water usage is sucking our acquifers dry. And what environmental issues do we spend our time #####ing about? Global warming.

Might as well argue about when the Earth's magnetic field is going to switch poles or whether the giant volcano under Yellowstone is going to erupt.