Looking to the past, not future

But paleontologists, like Bloch, don’t try to predict future climate change. They look to the past to try to understand the present.

“Because the Earth went through substantial climate change in the past – some of it very rapid and large scale – there’s a record in the rocks for exactly how animals and plants responded. And so we can go back as paleontologists and just reap the benefits of those experiments. We document that by collecting fossils and studying them. And then we can report them to the world with regards to how we should think about the reaction of plants and animals to the potential future climate change. With regards to how much we know about future climate change, that’s really a round for climate scientists and climate modelers,” he said.

Now, although the focus was on tiny horses 56 million years ago, the question still arises as to whether rising temperatures will mean smaller people in the future? Bloch says that’s possible. But there are a lot of factors involved. Right now, humans are getting bigger and that’s generally due to better nutrition. Humans could also adapt to rising temperatures by spending more time in air conditioned spaces.

There’s evidence today that temperatures and mammal size are linked.

“What you’re referring to is an observation that’s been coined Bergmann’s rule. And essentially what this rule says is that mammals of smaller size live in warmer environments and mammals of larger size live in cooler environments. And this has been documented in many different species of mammals,” said Bloch.