I hate to be overly pedantic but I just read in a recent article in Newsweek ("Cuba's new Guiding Star: Beijing") concerning the structural reforms imminent in Cuba, which it describes as a country "semi-paralyzed" until an ailing Castro kicks the bucket, (crude, I know, but that's the tone of the article).
The writer, unfortunately, makes a rather crude metaphor (from the eco-geek p.o.v. at least) in the last sentence, which reads:
"Until [Castro's younger brother] Raúl finds the political will to take these long overdue steps [for reform], Cuba will remain in an economic ice age, waiting for its last dinosaur to die".
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the world of the Jurassic period had no ice caps and an average global temperature of about 22 degrees Celsius (see image to the right). The K-T extinction event, which is credited for the extinction of the dinosaurs and which took place between the Cretaceous and Tertiary (or Paleogene) periods 65 Ma (million years ago), is believed to have been caused by a meteor that crashed - ironically - very near Cuba, a theory supported by the discovery of the Chicxulub crater. Kilometers-high tsunami would have crashed into what is now Cuba, wiping out any life there, including any prehistoric dictators (wink wink).
The problem with the metaphor above is that one would assume that the dinosaur extinction took place due to the onset of a glacial period, when, in fact, it was more likely caused by multiple meteor impacts and volcanism that belched CO2 and SO2 into the air. That would have created worsened climate conditions, but contrary to what the above metaphor suggests, temperatures rose.
The onset of the following "ice age" didn't take place until millions of years later - about 40Ma - and didn't intensify until the Pleistocene period (image) which was just 3 million years ago. So, it may have been a matter of some 60 million years, but I don't think Cuba can stand to wait that long for it's "last dinosaur" to expire (and, in which case, we should call Castro a "dead clade walking", a wonderful term coined by Chicago U professor, Jablonski). So, in the end, the Newsweek article will probably have Cuban bureaucrats cheering nothing more than, "Viva El Presidente!"
other interesting links:
Timeline of Geological Timescale
Climate change, greenhouse gasses
Paleocene-Eocene termal maximum (sea surface temps of 23°C/73°F, approx. 55 Ma)
Snowball Earth hypothesis (750~580Ma)
World Factbook: Cuba includes a nice map :)
Sue at the Chicago Field Museum
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