President Donald Trump seems immune to the potential dangers posed by global climate warming. Last week, for example, he, before natural gas executives and employees in Pittsburgh, announced that the U.S. would officially withdraw from the Paris climate accord, which would be the day after the 2020 Presidential Election. I have long written about the environment becoming the primary issue to affect the outcome, and this declaration could well become the determining factor.
From NASA, here is the latest graph of Earth's temperature over the last 650,000 years, showing seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat.
600,000 YA
Homo Heidelbergensis (right) lives in Africa and Europe. Similar brain capacity to modern humans
500,000 YA
Earliest evidence of purpose-built shelters – wooden huts – are known from sites near Chichibu, Japan
400,000 YA
Early humans begin to hunt with spears
325,000 YA
Oldest surviving early human footprints are left by three people who scrambled down the slopes of a volcano in Italy
280,000 YA
First complex stone blades and grinding stones
230,000 YA
Neanderthals (right) appear and are found across Europe, from Britain in the west to Iran in the east, until they become extinct with the advent of modern humans 28,000 years ago
195,000 YA
Our own species Homo sapiens appears on the scene – and shortly after begins to migrate across Asia and Europe. Oldest modern human remains are two skulls found in Ethiopia that date to this period. Average human brain volume is 1350 cm3
170,000 YA
Mitochondrial Eve, the direct ancestor to all living people today, may have been living in Africa
150,000 YA
Humans possibly capable of speech. 100,000-year-old shell jewellery suggests that that people develop complex speech and symbolism
140,000 YA
First evidence of long-distance trade
110,000 YA
Earliest beads – made from ostrich eggshells – and jewellery
50,000 YA
“Great leap forward”: human culture starts to change much more rapidly than before; people begin burying their dead ritually; create clothes from animal hides; and develop complex hunting techniques, such as pit-traps.
Colonisation of Australia by modern humans
33,000 YA
Oldest cave art. Later, Stone Age artisans create the spectacular murals at Lascaux and Chauvet in France
Homo erectus dies out in Asia – replaced by modern man
18,000 YA
Homo Floresiensis, “Hobbit” people, found on the Indonesian island of Flores. They stand just over 1 metre tall, and have brains similar in size to chimpanzees, yet have advanced stone tools
12,000 YA
Modern people reach the Americas
10,000 YA
Agriculture develops and spread. First villages. Possible domestication of dogs5,500 YA
Stone Age ends and Bronze Age begins. Humans begin to smelt and work copper and tin, and use them in place of stone implements
5,000 YA
Earliest known writing (right)
4,000 to 3,500 BC
The Sumerians of Mesopotamia develop the world’s first civilization
Ho hum, but the Dow Jones Industrials reached another all-time high, rising 92 to 27,284. Here is how the Dow has performed since before 1900 (remember, that is a logarithmic scale):
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