Conserving our world’s biodiversity is currently one of the biggest challenges we face. I wrote a post recently about some of the issues palaeontologists face when trying to make our science relative to current conservation management and biodiversity issues (and have written elsewhere about this too). This is very much a developing issue within which palaeontology is framing itself, as with ever squeezing science budgets around the world, scientists are being forced to find the hook or application that makes their research ‘relevant’ to broader society. The role that palaeontology can play for both climate change and biodiversity patterns and processes is the natural progression of science accompanying such shifts.