If all the carbon stored in fossil fuels was once in the atmosphere, should the planet then have been too warm to sustain life?

Question

If all the carbon stored in fossil fuels was once in the atmosphere, should the planet then have been too warm to sustain life?

In: Planetary Science

Answer 1

Life can adapt to higher temperatures. It’s trivial. The problem is that naturally occurring temperature increases happen over hundreds if not thousands of years, not remotely at the speed it’s increasing now.

Life on Earth can adapt to many many things, but not at the speed things are currently changing thanks to humankind