Exploring how plants, animals, and oceans responded to past climate shifts when Earth underwent rapid warming periods over billions of years. Examines adaptation and survival amid environmental changes.

The Earth has existed for more than four billion years, and climate changes have always existed. In the past, the processes were slower, but not all living things were able to adapt. Now, a new hot season is casting its shadow and changing the Earth particularly quickly and profoundly. How have plants, animals, oceans reacted during past hot spells?