• wellwisher
    163
    Do you not think that it's a bit silly to judge the possibility of human causation on a timescale of the entire history of Earth? After all, our ancestors have only been around for about six million years, the modern form of humans only evolved about 200,000 years ago, civilisation as we know it is only about 6,000 years old, and industrialisation started in the earnest only in the 1800s [1], whereas Earth has been around for about 4.543 billion years [2]. It therefore shouldn't be at all surprising that it would be the first time in the history of Earth that humans caused Earth to warm, given that that would have been impossible for a period spanning billions of years, and then, even since our existence, our contributions would have been on a much less significant scale until at least the last few hundred years.Sapientia

    As an analogy, say you saw a bird you never saw before. You know birds fairly well and think this is a new species. You wish to gain credit for this discovery, since it will make you popular and open new doors. Would it be wise to first do research in the deep archives, to see if this bird is already in the catalog? Or should you sell it as new, to those who like to chase the latest fad, and/or know how to capitalize on fads?

    In the case of the bird, deeper research in the dusty stacks may indicate that this bird was already in the catalog, but was thought to be extinct 100 years ago. Your discovery is still important, but not what you thought it was, originally.

    In 2005 a team of Scientists from Lamont Lab at Columbia University discovered that the core of the earth rotates faster than the surface. This was never know before, and was a quantum step to better understanding how the earth works.

    The problem is, 14 years later, the earth sciences have not kept pace with this major discovery. It is sort of on the back burner, since it changes all the current theory that is taken as gospel. Politics is preventing the system from changing, since the experts may not end up as the experts, since we will need to revise almost everything. This is young man's sport, or sport for wily old veterans with nothing to lose and everything to gain. The science swamp is not doing the right thing.

    Based on the old theory consensus, before this discovery, the current scenario makes reasonable sense; extinct birded revisited. But based on the needed new earth science, that can include the latest core rotation data, this is not so certain. For the core to rotate and outpace the surface means huge amounts of energy; friction and heat, that is not in any consensus climate equation.

    The history of science is full of changes that are avoided to maintain a status quo; Galileo. The media and political hype is there for sales pitch, to distract from the needed change.
  • S
    11.7k
    No, let's stick to addressing your original point before moving on to a revision of it. Let's say that I have discovered a new species of bird. Would it be remarkable that this would be the first time in the 4.543 billion year history of Earth that a human has discovered this new species of bird, bearing in mind the comparative length of human history and development? Yes or no? Would it, for example, be astounding that no human had yet discovered this species of bird in the first two or three billion years since the formation of Earth?
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