Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> It has changed more in the past 100 years than in the past 200,000.

I don't think so.

Look at sea level: 125,000 years ago, sea level was 8 m higher. 20,000 years ago, sea level was 130 m lower. [0]

So over the past 200,000 years sea level has varied ~ 138 meters. It hasn't varied that much over the past 100 years.

[0] https://courses.ems.psu.edu/earth107/node/1496



Dammit - I went a zero too many, human civilisation ~ 20,000 years worth of "settled" building, agriculture, slowly increasing in scale as climate variations decreased in scale.

Everything that is "modern human civilisation" from, say, early Egyptian onwards (following the formation of the Sahara some 6,000 years past) has taken place in a period of climatc stability.

Point being, come climatic change on that scale again, the planet and various eco systems will adapt and move on, human civilisation patterns as we know them from history will be heavily jarred.

Cheers for that.


As a general note, @7402 was right to question my comment, particularly with a supplied reference to university course notes.

I made a fat fingered typo, they made a respectful statement of fact, downvotes are not deserved here, if anything throw @7402 a few upvotes for taking part as the HN guidelines encourage.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: