It's very niave
to suggest that we are too small to make a difference to the planet. We can, and we have. Also recorded history did not start two thousand years ago. The data for global carbon dioxide temperatures, as you point out, comes form ice core data.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:29, 1 reply)

"Global Carbon Dioxide Temperatures"?
Please tell me you missed the words "levels / " from the middle of that...

And I didn't say we're too small to make a difference to the planet. I said we're not making that much of a difference compared with the massive differences that Nature itself makes.

A quick Google shows us: math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/1.35Myr.small.jpg. Which shows a huge number of heating and cooling cycles. Beware of the scaling...
Disclaimer: I don't know how accurate it is, but it's from a .edu so I'd guess it's probably been at least a little bit researched.

And that graph says we're doing about right.

Also, remember that people keep calling a hundred years "long term effects". That's actually within living memory (well, within one lifespan). Even if something takes a thousand years to sort itself out that's still only HALF the time since Jesus is reputed to have been born- or about 12x the time since the 1st world war ended. Hell, it's only 20x the age of the Mini!

Anyway, the oh-so-evil oil (boo! hiss!) and other hydrocarbons (gasp!) will all be burnt or uneconomical to extract long before it does any incredibly serious damage.
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:03, closed)