Recycling: 1888

Old shoes have uses as raw material for certain industries. In many countries abroad and to some extent in the United States, they are collected with care, ripped apart and the leather subjected to treatment that renders it soft and makes it available for sundry purposes. Patterns are stamped upon it, trunks are covered with it, and it is also used for making shoes again. The soles are extensively used in making heels for ladies' and children's shoes. The nails also are saved and made profitable, and the useless scraps are converted into fertilizers.

--From Good Housekeeping--

I guess we couldn't do something like this today because of all the manual labor it would take. The minimum wage and all sorts of regulations would make it impossible. How much recycling isn't done simply because regulations make it too expensive to be profitable?

Politicians say global warming is the biggest issue facing humanity, but they never act like it, except when it comes to raising taxes.

Perspective: 1863

But if we take the case of a physical catastrophe, over which man has no control at all, such, for instance, as an earthquake, it may be remarked, that one of the severest on record, namely, that which desolated the Neapolitan provinces in 1858, swept away only about 20,000 persons in all the different places which lay in its path, whereas the present war in America, even if it were brought to a speedy issue, will have cost the lives of half a million of the human race.

--From Climate: an inquiry into the causes of its differences...--

We could wipe out billions of people in the blink of an eye, we will be able to for the foreseeable future, and politicians worry about secondary or tertiary problems which may never materialize, or may even turn out to be blessings!

Anthropomorphic Global Warming: 1863

It would appear, then, that man is really capable of exercising a certain control over the humidity of the climate, by thinning the forests, or by renewing them in the manner represented; nor can it be doubted, that the same effect will be brought about by drainage, which carries off the redundant waters into their appropriate channels, instead of allowing them to stagnate upon the surface.

And in thus altering the character of a country with respect to its humidity, he may hope to bring about a corresponding change also in its temperature, for the tendency of swamps and stagnant waters is to cool down by their evaporation the surface of the earth, as well as to intercept the rays of the sun by the mists and fogs they engender.

I'll buy that. It even sounds testable, go figure.

--From Climate: an inquiry into the causes of its differences...--

Meteors: 1808

"In all the instances in which these stones have been supposed to fall from the clouds, and of which any perfect account has been given, the appearance of a luminous meteor, exploding with loud noise, has immediately preceded, and hence has been looked to as the cause. The stones likewise have been more or less hot, when found immediately after their supposed fall. Different opinions however have been entertained on this subject, which is certainly involved in much difficulty. Some philosophers imagine them to be formed in the atmosphere by a sudden condensation of the elements of their component parts: others, that they already existed on the spot where they were found, and were merely struck by the electric discharge : and prof. Proust has invested, that they might be torn from the polar regions by the meteor. Some have supposed them to be merely projected from volcanoes : while others have suggested, that they might be thrown from the moon; or be bodies wandering through space, and at length brought within the sphere of attraction of our planet."

--From A dictionary of practical and theoretical chemistry--

So many theories, and the author is careful not to take sides, using "supposed" in the main description. He definitely understood the spirit of scientific investigation.

The explanation we use today wasn't handed down by a committee or what one person thought was best, but by years of experiments and arguing.

It doesn't make sense to take sides when all the information isn't known. At one point the French Academy of Sciences did make a ruling on the subject; they concluded that meteorites didn't fall from the sky at all, but were caused by lightning strikes. Fortunately, today we don't try discovering scientific truths through consensus. That would be idiotic.