Imagine a world of wildly escalating temperatures, apocalyptic flooding, devastating storms and catastrophic sea level rise. This might sound like a prediction for the future or the storyline of a new Hollywood blockbuster but it's something quite different: it's our past. In a day and age when where we're bombarded with worrying forecasts for future climate, it seems hard to believe that such things could come to pass. Yet almost everywhere we turn, the landscape is screaming out that the world is a capricious place. The problem is if we don't tune in, the message is lost. We need to decipher the past and learn from it.

Here Chris Turney reads from the Introduction of his new book Ice, Mud and Blood: Lessons from Climates Past. In it, he investigates ancient climates, looks at how past changes affected our ancestors and explores what this all means for the future.

Follow the red arrow to hear the podcast.