Stopping the Next Ice Age

What the advocates of using up our stores of fossils fuels rarely seem to do is explain how we are going to prevent the next ice age.

Cyclic

There is very strong evidence that there have been several ice ages.  There is also evidence (not as strong or as widely accepted) that the reason we are not in an ice age now is partly because of anthropological global warming. 

Based on the carbon dioxide levels at the same stages of other interglacial periods, at the start of the industrial revolution the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should have been about 240 parts per million (ppm).  Instead it was about 280 ppm.  This seems to have been enough to prevent the northern parts of the northern hemisphere continents being covered in snow over summer and prevented the start of an ice age.

However, we are now increasing the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere extremely rapidly.  In a few thousand years, after we have used up all the accessible fossil fuels, the world will start to get colder.

Preventing an Ice Age

The obvious way of stopping this would be to increase the percentage of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.  This would be more difficult if we have already used up all the fossil fuels we can get.

Of course it can be augued that there are other ways like orbital mirrors.  Many of the other possible ways are beyond our present level of technology.  To be able to implement these depends on continued progress.  We cannot rely on this happening.  It would be safer to leave a reasonable amount of accessible fossil fuels.