I was skeptical but I finally got my head around the fact that the world really has been fairly stable for a very long time (temperature-wise), even during the 'ice ages' and such. Just a few degrees makes a big difference. Here's a great, simple chart that illustrated it well for me. The coldest ice-age in the past 20,000+ years was only 4 degrees C lower than today (ON AVERAGE, across the globe) and we are now heading up by about 1 degrees C above average, but on a very fast trajectory. I'm an engineer/scientist and have no problem believing this.
I was skeptical but I finally got my head around the fact that the world really has been fairly stable for a very long time (temperature-wise), even during the 'ice ages' and such. Just a few degrees makes a big difference. Here's a great, simple chart that illustrated it well for me. The coldest ice-age in the past 20,000+ years was only 4 degrees C lower than today (ON AVERAGE, across the globe) and we are now heading up by about 1 degrees C above average, but on a very fast trajectory. I'm an engineer/scientist and have no problem believing this.