Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World
Marcia Bjornerud
Few realize the scale of time in our planet's long history, and this is at the root of many of the environmental problems we create. It is easy for us to imagine a period of nine days - that is how long a drop of water remains in the Earth's atmosphere. But a period of hundreds of years - the time that a carbon dioxide molecule spends in the atmosphere - is almost beyond human comprehension. Our everyday life is determined by processes that began thousands and millions of years ago, and the consequences of what we do, in turn, will outlive us. The period of the earth's existence may seem incomprehensibly long compared to the shortness of human life, but such an attitude towards time does not allow us to feel our deep connection with the history of the earth and assess the extent of our impact on it. Understanding the rhythms of the distant past and seeing time through the eyes of geologists can force us to take a fresh look at the planet and learn to act in the interests of many future generations.
