Fox News figures often suggest that historical shifts in the global climate somehow disprove the notion that human-driven climate change is threatening our way of life. However, the past transformations of the global climate -- and the mass extinctions that accompanied them -- actually give good reason to worry.

On May 11, Senator and potential presidential candidate Marco Rubio (R-FL) picked up a talking point that is often made on Fox News to dismiss climate change, suggesting that because "[o]ur climate is always changing" we should not worry about man-made climate change.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson debunked this suggestion in an episode of FOX Broadcasting Network's Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey that explored large shifts in the global climate that occurred prior to human civilization. In that episode, Tyson concluded: “We are dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a rate the Earth hasn't seen since the great climate catastrophes of the past -- the ones that led to mass extinctions.” Watch the difference between the political games of Fox News and the credible science touted by its sister channel, the FOX Broadcasting Network:

It is a logical fallacy to argue that because climate change has occurred naturally in the past, it cannot change unnaturally now. Skeptical Science analogized it to arguing that because people have died of natural causes, they cannot be murdered. 

Video made by John Kerr and Coleman Lowndes.

Image at top via Flickr user Joe Penniston using a Creative Commons License.