New York Times Definitons

The earth has gone through a number of warming phases. Where the temperature rises above the normal average. Clear back in the prehistoric days, before mankind was even recognized, there was a major warming phase in the earth’s history.  A warming phase can occur from numerous causes. The sun has cycles that can exert extra amounts of heat. This can cause an the earth to heat quickly. warming caused by man kind has been a very large global debate. This debate is over the emission of green house gasses. These gasses like carbon dioxide received the name as a green house gas due to their response in the atmosphere. They allow the suns rays to enter into earth's atmosphere, but when the rays try to escape back into space, the gasses hold them in causing the earth to warm. Man kind releases huge amounts of gasses into the atmosphere, from factories to cars, we all contribute to the problem.


Adaptation is the species ability to change it’s body form to give it a better chance of survival. If a species can’t adapt, then it is lost to history. Charles Darwin, a well-known English naturalist, called this The Process of Natural Selection. Normally Adaptation takes hundreds to thousands of years to accomplish. Its not a very speedy thing.  Evolution is the genetic change from adaptation.


The Sifrhippus is the modern day horses’ prehistoric relative. This ancient horse species was a lot smaller than today’s horse. In fact, it was about the size of a small house cat. This species lived nearly 56 million years ago! The Sifrhippus was about 12 pounds average weight. It adapted as the climate warmed and the Sifrhippus shrunk in size, each animal then weighed about eight and a half pounds.