成人快手

Justin looks at the period since the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, which had seen a steadily cooling climate - until we humans turned up. What can the last 66 million years teach us about the likely consequences of climate change? And can our species make the next big evolutionary leap needed to tackle it?

Adrian Lister of the Natural History Museum gives Justin a fossilised tour of how the Earth's fauna adapted to this changing climate. Cardiff University's Carrie Lear explains how human carbon emissions have already turned the clock back some three million years to a time when sea levels were 20 metres higher. But that's not the only way our carbon emissions are meddling with the oceans, as Daniela Schmidt of Bristol University warns. Plus evolutionary theorist Eors Szathmary explains how climate change could be the ultimate test of whether humans can complete the next great leap in evolution of life on Earth.

Producer: Laurence Knight

Image: Car exhaust (Credit: Thorsten Nilson / EyeEm via Getty Images)