One interesting facet of the climate change controversy is the idea that events may change slowly until reaching a tipping point. At this juncture many inter-related factors come into play causing a cascade of events causing very rapid change. Very much like a meteorite ambling through space. Quite innocuous until it impacts earth but then the results can be devastating.
    We know these events have occurred in the past but the money devoted to researching future impacts is minute. Mythologies from around the world give a race memory of these events and strangely ancient man had a fixation on the zodiac, a way of measuring vast measures of time(nearly 26000 yrs) I do not believe this was a construct merely to stir the porridge for the requisite length of time.
It is only in the last half century the techniques have become sufficiently refined for paleoclimate studies to have real meaning and accurate temperature records for perhaps 150 years(though increasing urbanisation make some of these readings suspect)
As a final indignity we have the IPCC hijacked by politicos so their ramblings are now meaningless. We have a major problem sorting wheat from chaff, mythology from fact or fiction and scientific fact from propaganda.
Unfortunately we need a paradigm shift in the way we approach these various studies and a way of unifying them to make sensible interpretations as to our immediate future climate.

As an aside perusing the following gives food for thought.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/hamlets_mill/hamletmill.htm