In 1911 the discovery that the world was billions of years old changed our view of the world for ever.
By the end of the 19th century, many geologists still believed the age of the Earth to be a few thousand years old, as indicated by the Bible, while others considered it to be around 100 million years old, in line with calculations made by Lord Kelvin, the most prestigious physicist of his day.
It was against a background of dramatic and exciting scientific discoveries that a young Arthur Holmes (1890-1964) completed his schooling and won a scholarship to study physics at the Royal College of Science in London. There he developed the technique of dating rocks using the uranium-lead method and from the age of his oldest rock discovered that the Earth was at least 1.6 billion years old (1,600 million).
In the 1920s the new theory of continental drift became the great scientific conundrum, and most geologists were unable to accept the concept due to the lack of a mechanism for driving the continents around the globe.
In 1928 Arthur Holmes showed how convection currents in the substratum (now called the mantle) underlying the continents could be this mechanism. This proved to be correct but it was another 40 years before his theories were accepted and the theory of plate tectonics became a reality.
Today, few discussions in geology can occur without reference to geologic time and plate tectonics. They are both integral to our way of thinking about the world. Holmes died in 1964 having lived just long enough to see sea floor spreading confirm his ideas of continental drift.
Do you have any problems catching up to 1911?
31–Cetainly one of the dumbest posts ever made?
Its not the New beach front property appearing that is bad. Its the old beach front property disappearing where currently billions do live and very much of our capital investment is. Look at those colored maps of what will get flooded at different sea level rises?
Even living in Colorado with a rope for a belt wil greatly affect those who are inland.
>>First Crack–carbon dioxide is a minor greenhouse gas
>>compared to many others.
But it’s the one more highly influenced by human activity. Maybe if we were causing increases in methane, the temps would be going up by tens of degrees instead of fractions of one.
>>Michael Chricton the physician turned novelist
Oh, now THERE is an impeccable pedigree for someone to bloviate on global ecochemistry; a guy who was trained to take out tonsils, and gave it up to write pulp fiction.
>>So Joshua, even when you wait to see
By then, it will be too late to do anything.
Much as I hate to agree with the resident gigolo, I concur that one muse ask “cui bono?”. Or as that great philosopher Deep Throat once counseled: “Follow the money”. And the money doesn’t lead back to a bunch of professors with leather patches on the elbows of their blazers making $55,000/yr.
#32 – Yes, they are affected but you haven’t proved it’s a “bad” effect. Who says GW is a bad thing?
As an aside, it’s interesting how the lefties like to quote Eisenhower about being wary of the military-industrial complex but they never mentino this quote from the same source – “Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
Kinda sounds like the crowd that wants to give us a GW “cure” that’s worse than the problem.
#30 – add to your list the fact that NASA has now admitted more errors in it’s data:
http://tinyurl.com/2knhr5
http://tinyurl.com/3cu3th
34–Yes, errors in measurements was another crack I forgot to mention. Seems many of the “cold” weather measuring places were in Russia and they all got closed down after Russia crumbled. Now, I can’t believe the lack of those cold measurements was just ignored–but Horner (?) claims that is the case. No Hurricanes last year was another. Cold snap from 1940-70’s, Kilamanjaro melting from the 30’s and so forth.
Course that all could just show the inadequacy of human timeframes – -but I don’t think we have had many good years of world wide average temperature measurements??? Ice cores don’t hack it–etc.
We should still do what we can for other “clean air and water” reasons etc. AND has to be said re the Billions spent on Iraq==what would be our energy position if only THAT money had been put into clean energy development?? Pissing in our disappearing drinking water is what we’re doing!!
#34 – IGW, your first link is to a post by CNS “news”, an organization that makes Fox “news” look like the spawn of move on dot org and Michael Moore. The second one has no content.
And yes, we must be vigilant against lies and subterfuge from all sides. However, when one side looks to trillion$ of dollars in monetary gain and the other is just looking for some new leather patches for the elbows of their blazers, you have to ask…. cui bono??
#36 – Funky, I get content when I click it. Here’s another one: http://tinyurl.com/36k5gc
Funny how many of you bach Fox and other sources yet you want me to trust sources like CBS , former home of Dan Makeitupasyougo Blather.
“an organization that makes Fox “news” look like the spawn of move on dot org and Michael Moore. ”
I had to think about that for a minute – eewwwww. That’s a concept that’s have more effect on me than an e.coli salad. Thanks.
>>Funny how many of you bach Fox and other sources yet you want
>>me to trust sources like CBS , former home of Dan
>>Makeitupasyougo Blather.
The so-called “mainstream media” is under constant scrutiny from the left, right, and middle. Even something like Dan Rather’s fuck-up (and you KNOW he was right in the end; Little King Georgie’s military “service” STILL hasn’t been explained any better than the mysterious “rectangular object” he had under his jacket during the debates) is immediately pounced upon.
That contrasts it with the hate press, like CNS “news”, Fox “news”, Jewish World Review, WorldNet Daily, the KKK Newsletter, etc., that nobody really takes seriously. So nobody investigates what they say, because they just assume it’s a lie. Which it usually is.
Yup, constant investigation shows a constant leftward tilt which is then duly ignored.
#30, Bobbo,
Sixth–It was stated on TV last week that IPCC–the UN organization where “all the scientists” agree about the global warming is CHARTERED, and created FOR THE PURPOSE, of summarizing the evidence in support of the Kyoto Protocols. Strong Bias I think.
Uumm good point but it sounds like something from a Fox Spews talking head. Try checking it out yourself before guessing.
Mandate and Membership of the IPCC
Recognizing the problem of potential global climate change, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. It is open to all members of the
UN and WMO.
The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. The IPCC does not carry out research nor does it monitor climate related data or other relevant parameters. It bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific/technical literature. Its role, organisation, participation and general procedures are laid down in the “Principles Governing IPCC Work”
http://www.ipcc.ch/about/about.htm
#37, iHotAir(YOP)
Gee, funny how you post blog comments instead of going to the source. Shoot, instead of even quoting the source, this blog posting quoted their own expert from some organization I’ve never heard of. Maybe because there is so little to complain about, the GW “troofers” have to invent their own complaints.
FYI for those who didn’t follow iHotAir(YOP)’s link, NASA revised its historical data. Because they are scientists and firmly believe in accuracy, the mean average temperature was adjusted slightly. The changes resulted in statistically insignificant changes.
Not only does one side – and one side only – have huge quantities of filthy lucre at stake, but they also, just incidentally, happen to already have virtually unlimited funds available to hire the very best, most expert and skillful connivers, confusers, propagandists, spin doctors, con men, sellout “scientists”, marketing whizzes and other assorted prevaricators-for-hire.
IOW, they can afford the services of people who’ll convince you that black is white and your mother was really Josef Stalin if you give ’em 10 minutes. Meaning to say that with no scruples about honesty and unlimited resources to make their case, the fact that their case is still weak as water – that should make the inference obvious that they don’t, in reality, even HAVE a case. Sow’s ear ≠ silk purse.