Another problem with this article: 300 Million years ago (Carboniferous/Early Permian) was a time of great diversification and biotic expansion. Oxygen levels, and temperature, were much higher than now. Life flourished. It was only later, when carbon levels dropped, that earth experienced a massive floral extinction. Now, if they are,in fact, talking of the end Permian, they may have a point. Carbon levels then may have reached an all time of 3000 ppm (Ward: OUT OF THIN AIR) but there was also a massive drop in oxygen (to about 12% -- current level is 21% and the Carboniferous high about 31%).
In any event the 2000 ppm figure knocked me right off. Will now go back, read the rest, and see how much science was able to creep through the author's breathless prose.
A few factoids though to amaze the global warming hysteriacs:
1. The average mean temperature in Montana during the Eocene was 27 degrees warmer than now. Oh, and life thrived! The cooler Oligocene age that followed (still much warmer than now) was less diverse than either of the warmer epochs that bracketed it.
2. The Arctic ice cap is a relatively recent development. It did not exist until the mid-Pliocene (about 1.5 MYA).
3. Pleistocene climate cycles, no matter how they're tracked, match most closely to the Croll-Milankovitch cycles (the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, the tilt of it's axis, and the wobble, or "precession", of that axis).
4. Even living in an interglacial as we are, our era, geologically speaking, is far colder than virtually anything that has come before.
And, finally: 5. Warmer temperatures support biotic diversity. Colder temperatures inhibit biotic diversity. Ergo: Global warming is good for diversity. :-)