the specie is certainly testing to the limit of the environment that has allowed, agriculture (12,000 years ago), settlements (10,000 years ago), and manipulation of environment through technology, near the same times.

With temperatures the highest in 44,000 - 120,000 years, humans are now trying to pass beyond the mild climates that have allowed them to settle, employ agriculture and irrigation, mechanize and advance technology, and develop into social enclaves and customs.

Soon with rising temperatures, humans will enter into uncharted territory where reliance on agriculture becomes tenuous at best, adequate potable water questionable, and settlements and societies face a regression to migratory gathering.

We have reached the border of our known environmental experience, and within two centuries have passed our sweet spot and are entering into a future that leaves behind significant advantages to our comfort.

This study illustrates what humans face today, tiptoeing the borders of dramatic and rapidly changing climate. The line has been drawn, and though the curse is yet to be realized, it has been illustrated and pre recorded in our geologic history. And yet our actions show no urgency.

What will be our epitaph?

Epitaph?

"Crap, I was sure that last solution would fix everything!"

might enshrine our actions in one of our ubiquitous and endearing cynics of our land of milk and honey.

In the spirit of Alfred E. Newman, our epitaph should read, 'What, me worry'