Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, the Earth experienced a series of climate changes that shaped the planet as we know it today. Past changes in CO2 levels and temperature can help us understand the planet's response to global warming today.

In a growing field called biogeodynamics, researchers are trying to understand how such changes have affected life on the planet in the past.

"We are trying to understand processes relevant to the present using the geological past," says Julian Rogger, who focuses on biogeodynamics at the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich. (PETER RÜEGG-ETH ZURICH, more at future.org)