By the final programme of his five-part Earth series, broadcast last year by the BBC, Chris Packham had perfected the art of taking imprecise proxy data from the geological record and comparing it to more accurate modern measurements to draw dubious conclusions about imminent climate collapse. One sudden spike in temperatures about 56 million years ago over “just a few thousand years” is said to be “incredible but sobering”. Scientists, he says, regard this as “analogous” to what is happening today. Some might, but a lot of others are more circumspect about relying on geological data that has a resolution of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, and comparing it with today’s measurements.
Packham draws conclusions from events in the PETM, or Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, a warming period that began sometime around 56.3 million to 55.9 million years ago. Briefly, it appears global temperatures shot up to around 25 or 26°C, compared with about 14.5°C today. In a published essay, science writer Andy May studied the evidence around the PETM and noted the proxy temperature measurements with lengthy resolutions “are not comparable to today’s monthly averages”.
But this lack of temporal precision does not stop Packham waxing lyrically about the PETM. “Violent storms ravaged the planet with flash floods and protracted drought,” he says. “What is scary is how it happened – each event triggering the next until it pushed the Earth past some serious tipping points,” he claims.
Read more: Chris Packham Packs on the Pseudoscience to Promote Climate Collapse “Terror”