“And the “age” of those trees is determined by what? Rocks? Fossils? Ice cores?”
Yes, Trees rings and ice core layers can be literally measured year by year. Every layer and every ring is a year. Just a fact observed from just the few short years since we have been documenting these.
Why would I believe in human induced climate change? That wasn’t even part of the discussion. But the fact is, based on ice core samples, the previous interglacial 125,000 saw higher temperatures and higher concentrations of CO2 than we have yet during this current interglacial. The CO2 is literally trapped in the ice...
The biggest telltale indicator of the the earth’s age is geological. We know how long it takes stone to metamorphose, weather, and erode. Ever study the Emperor Sea Mount chain? The age is not debatable as to how old it is based on plate tectonics and crustal movement over millions of years. We can actually measure this movement with laser instruments. Same with land rising over volcanic swells in the crust. So it gives us a very good estimate how long it took to move these things.
Young earth is just impossible based on the measurements we have already eye witnessed and accurately measured in real time over the last hundred years. Some scientific fact is just indisputable. Now was there a flood? Yes factual Geology also proves this. Did we Evolve? No I do not think so. But is the earth only 6K to 8K old? Absolutely impossible.
I agree with you. I wouldn’t even put the age of the planet in the realm of beliefs. Earth has been around a long time.
A small codicile though, tree rings are not accurate, because trees can have more than one ring per year, depending on the climate. The best indicator is erosion, the burial depth of artifacts etc. When a geologist finds a river that has had 10’s or 100’s of thousands of flood stages, that means a lot of years. Maybe not millions, as in different climatic times, there could have been more than one heavy rain per year.
It must be fascinating to study and theorize. To gather data points and put them against the past and against others in the same fields.
The theory in this video is undoubtedly correct.
Just as the entirety of Evolution followed the late Stephen Jay Gould’s theory of “Punctuated Equilibrium”, Civilization courses along ideal climate perturbations.
I also suspect that the occasional genius (perhaps appearing in clusters) prompted immense leaps in technology.