The Awareness of Time: The Past and Future of the Earth Through the Eyes of a Geologist

Few realize the scale of time in the long history of our planet, and this is fundamentally linked to many of the ecological problems we create. We can easily imagine a period of nine days — this is how long a drop of water remains in the Earth's atmosphere. But a period of hundreds of years — the time a molecule of carbon dioxide spends in the atmosphere — is almost beyond human comprehension. Our everyday life is defined by processes that began thousands and millions of years ago, and the consequences of what we do will outlast us in turn. The period of Earth's existence may seem incomprehensibly long compared to the brevity of human life, but such an attitude towards time prevents us from feeling our deep connection to the history of the Earth and appreciating the scale of our impact on it. Understanding the rhythms of the distant past and perceiving time through the eyes of geologists can lead us to look at the planet anew and learn to act in consideration of the interests of many future generations.