The fossils of palm trees are not from "centuries" before the Industrial Revolution; they are from millions of years before the Industrial Revolution. Earth has had much warmer, and much colder, periods than present, if you want to examine the geological record. But you can't compare then to now, because for one thing, the continents weren't even in the same place.
Even so, the latitudes of the various continents have not changed that much, have they? (It is my understanding that the continental drifts, if they occurred, have been mostly east-west and not north-south.) My point is that the earth warms and cools cyclically in spite of human activity.