10,000 years ago, the great glaciers were just relinquishing their grip on Northern Europe and North America. Since then, vast forests have sprung up and soil has developed on bare shattered rock. The fungus that we call civilisation has spread across these northern plains and rolling hills where once glaciers squatted and ice creaked.

If the icecaps recede further, then - with time - far northern lattitudes will become habitable. Perhaps trees will sprout in Antarctica again after a multi-million year hiatus?

10 Ka is too short a time for evolution - only adaptation and exploitation of ecological niches has occurred and can, in principle, be wound-back on demand. The biosphere has the potential to cope with quite drastic climate change over quite short timescales, but there are some caveats:-

* For all the gains, there are also losses, like the great tropical plains of Sundaland, flooded to form the Java sea, and all the other continental shelves which were the former dwelling-place of vast herds of beasts and men.

* If biodiversity is carelessly reduced, the ecosystem may lose the flexibility to respond to future climate change whose nature is not precisely known.

* Timescales and rates are important, and the artificial boundaries of our countries and the real boundaries of our fencelines and highways may impede natural migration of fauna and colonisation of flora.