Ryan P. wrote:

ecarecar wrote:


Before you relax in you complacency, I think you should check on the
rate of change
during the "vast number of major changes in Earth's past history." I
think you will find
that never before has the rate of change been this large.

.
.
Okay, I did a bit of research. It seems that just after the end of
the last major ice age, 12,000 years ago (before modern civilzation),
the global temperature jumped by about 14 degrees (F) in just a few
decades. This article:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/climate-04k.html

Cites several other examples of rapid climate change. Two
particularly interesting paragraphs:

""Technically, an abrupt climate change occurs when the climate
system is forced to cross some threshold, triggering a transition to a
new state at a rate determined by the climate system itself and faSter
than the cause," according to a definition developed by the National
Research Council.

Abrupt change needs a trigger, an amplifier -- some mechanism to have
the trigger affect a large area -- and a source of persistence. It
turns out lots of triggers have been identified, for example, an
accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as is occurring now.""

If someone claims that there was a temperature increase of "14 degrees
(F) in just a few decades"
some time in the past, they certainly can't claim it was caused by
loading the atmosphere with
carbon dioxide in just a few decades.

It is not comparable.