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What Killed the Great Beasts of North America?
sciencehabit writes "Until about 11,000 years ago, mammoths, giant beavers, and other massive mammals roamed North America. Many researchers have blamed their demise on incoming Paleoindians, the first Americans, who allegedly hunted them to extinction. But a new study points to climate and environmental changes instead. The findings could have implications for conservation strategies, including controversial proposals for 'rewilding' lions and elephants into North America."
My personal theory is that the pleistocene has been so cold because of the historically (4 billion years) high oxygen levels and the significant amount of historical carbon that has been sequestered underground.
Humans are changing that, we're sucking all the sequestered carbon out and putting it into the atmosphere where it hasn't been since the dinosaurs. Before all the science deniers reply, this is scary because humanity was born in the ice ages of the Pleistocene we've never experienced a planet as warm as the dinosaurs where there weren't any ice caps and it was 100 degrees in the northern reaches of Canada (yes I know the continents were in different places so Canada was at a lower latitude).
Humans will survive a warmer earth I have no doubt, but the potential for massive disruption to the food supply is there and if that happens there's going to be some really ugly war that humanity might not survive. The reason to be scared of global warming is because of those changing fertile zones, humanity goes batshit crazy when starvation is eminent.