Sorry to be song long in replying--the thread's basically dead now-- but I got stuck in meetings. You (and Don) took a while to write out your last postings so I thought they deserved one final reply. As Chuck pointed out, wooly mammoths were cold-weather creatures. If they had died in warm weather, they'd have decayed long before freezing. So they had to have died during quite cold weather. Then, as now, there were still sufficient vegetable materials to keep them fed. Maybe nothing Guy would eat, but just fine for mammoths.
But of course, Michael, when those mammoths were frozen the climate at that location must have been mild enough to support those huge semi-elephants. They ate a lot, and it wasn't frozen tundra.
I'd be the last one to deny that drastic climate changes throughout Earth's history were caused by natural events. Variation in the sun's radiation continues now. There's the occasional asteroid (KT boundary) or huge volcano (Permian/Triassic), The growth of mountains causes enormous change. I don't doubt at least some of Don's data of earlier temperature swings. Bear in mind that the Sargasso Sea figures are local surface temperatures covering a range of about 3 degrees C in a limited area. But the effects we're seeing now are reflected all over the world. Important temperature moderators like the Gulf Stream appear to be weakening. And there's one last disturbing detail that scientists have been learning from previous temperature swings. When climate changes, it doesn't appear to be gradual. Instead change is nearly immediate, occurring over just decades. Yep, the growing season in Canada will improve, but those same models don't show Utah as getting any better. OK, so there's doubt in some quarters--not many, but some. I'd ask the question "what's wrong with a little caution". There's absolutely no leadership coming from Washington. Why not raise fuel economy standards a little. It's not so hard to do. Why not drive a little less, a little slower, a little smaller car? Why not lower the amount of ambient light all over (I probably won't get much argument about THAT from this bunch)? What do we lose from a little energy efficiency? It seems that wastefulness is tied into some peoples' idea of manhood. There's an awful lot to lose (civilization as we know it) if our actions cause climate change. There's nothing at all to lose by living a little more modestly--and we might help avert some of the potential damage. That might allow us to scientifically determine our part in climate change before we screw up, instead of after. The old medical phrase 'First, do no harm' contains an awful lot of wisdom. It would seem to apply in these circumstances.