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Per scientist William F. Ruddiman writing in Scientific American, Earth has been in an ice age for millions of years, with brief interruptions by warm periods like ours. Given the length of previous such warm periods, this one should have ended 8,000 years ago. What stopped the ice age and made current human civilization possible? Global warming, caused by…. human agriculture.
Orson Scott Card has a great discussion of Ruddiman’s article here.