The Speculist

Our First Attempt at Global Warming

Apparently it was a success. FuturePundit Randall Parker reports:

Farming And Forest Destruction Prevented Ice Age 5000 Years Ago

In a paper published in the scientific journal Climate Change Dr. William Ruddiman argues that humanity prevented an ice age that would otherwise have begun about 4,000 or 5,000 years ago.

Both should have continued declining through the present day, leading to lower temperatures, and a new ice age should have begun 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, Dr. Ruddiman said. Instead, levels of carbon dioxide reversed 8,000 years ago and starting rising again. The decline in methane levels reversed 5,000 years ago, coinciding with the advent of irrigation rice farming.

If this argument is correct then humanity, by engaging in rice farming and deforestation, reversed a trend of decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane and, by doing so, prevented a cooling trend that would have brought on another ice age. This is a strong argument in favor of climate engineering.

Need I say it? Read the whole thing.