If the world warms back to the saurian sauna for a few millions of years, maybe mammals will not be on top of the game anymore. Time to welcome our new avian overlords. Maybe they'll evolve from crows. They're more optimal in so many ways anyway. Too bad they won't have coal, oil or natural gas reserves to build an early industrial civilization on.
But getting large amounts of copper, iron and aluminum will be so much easier with all the work we have already put into mining and refining it. At worst you have to invent the technology to turn wood into charcoal and charcoal into coke to get the fire hot enough to smelt iron. But aluminum is pretty rust resistant and can be smelted with a good wood fire, and avian species will likely prefer the lighter metal anyway.
> If the world warms back to the saurian sauna for a few millions of years, maybe mammals will not be on top of the game anymore.
Yes! I've been saying this. Global warming seems like a given at this point, so instead of stopping it we should try to increase oxygen levels too and then stick Bombardier Beetle fire-breathing genes in back-bred Hatzegopteryxes. Those beasts had wingspans over ten meters, were apex predators, and were built like it. May as well get some dragons to look at…
> Time to welcome our new avian overlords.
Not new. Birds are theropods, same as T-Rexes. It's just a return to form.
