Carbon dioxide is the
most ubiquitous chemical constituent of life on Earth, and Earth is the only
known planet on which life is present. Increases in atmospheric CO2 since 1870
are said to be associated with coal, oil and gas extraction and burning to have
enhanced a natural cyclical warming trend which began in 1875: 1875 which was
the coldest year in more than 2000 years, and marked the end of the Little Ice
Age which began in 1250, and which is testified to in historic narrative
weather records in Europe and China, and by modern studies of tree rings, ice
core and other physical data (Thompson, Mosley-Thompson et al 1986). The
coldest century in that era was the seventeenth. Historic records show a major
die-off of the human population occurred in that century, provoked by large
scale famines and wars. Numerous violent
conflicts emerged in Europe and Asia, including the European Thirty Years War
and the English Civil War, and a huge multi-decadal conflict that led to the
collapse of the Ming Dynasty in China (Parker 2013).
