[Phoenix-D]

"Life becoming extinct" is a pretty severe standard. There have been periods where 80-90% of all life on the planet died. You'd consider that pretty nasty, and it'd likely take *us* out, but it wouldn't fit that standard.

Read your statements again. "We don't have records beyond a few decades ago" and "There have been times when it was warmer than now" DON'T fit together.

The answer there is we do have records, care of trapped air bubbles in ice sheets and the like.

More to the point, global warming is a problem regardless of the cause. There are countries that will *cease to exist* if the sea level rises too much, and most of the human population lies close to a coast. Beyond that you have increased storm power, desertifcation of previous cropland, all sorts of unpleasant crap.