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Explains why an awareness of Earth's temporal rhythms is critical to planetary survival and offers suggestions for how to create a more time-literate society. "Why an awareness of Earth's temporal rhythms is critical to our planetary survival: Few of us have any conception of the enormous timescales in our planet's long history, and this narrow perspective underlies many of the environmental problems we are creating for ourselves. The passage of nine days, which is how long a drop of water typically stays in Earth's atmosphere, is something we can easily grasp. But spans of hundreds of years--the time a molecule of carbon dioxide resides in the atmosphere--approach the limits of our comprehension. Our everyday lives are shaped by processes that vastly predate us, and our habits will in turn have consequences that will outlast us by generations. Timefulness reveals how knowing the rhythms of Earth's deep past and conceiving of time as a geologist does can give us the perspective we need for a more sustainable future. Marcia Bjornerud shows how geologists chart the planet's past, explaining how we can determine the pace of solid Earth processes such as mountain building and erosion and comparing them with the more unstable rhythms of the oceans and atmosphere. These overlapping rates of change in the Earth system--some fast, some slow--demand a poly-temporal worldview, one that Bjornerud calls "timefulness." She explains why timefulness is vital in the Anthropocene, this human epoch of accelerating planetary change, and proposes sensible solutions for building a more time-literate society. This compelling book presents a new way of thinking about our place in time, enabling us to make decisions on multigenerational timescales. The lifespan of Earth may seem unfathomable compared to the brevity of human existence, but this view of time denies our deep roots in Earth's history--and the magnitude of our effects on the planet."--Jacket.… (more)
User reviews
The book is enlightening, thoughtful and truly based on proven fact, collected over centuries, agreed on by all who have looked at and studied the data gathered by numerous organizations worldwide. The book is thorough in its geology, and well balanced on the changes seen, measured, and reported on, that are underway on our earth today. The author points out how wise resource planning, which incorporates the geological record and its changes, could greatly affect our future quality of life on out planet.
An excellent book, and highly recommended for science buffs, public and school libraries, and general readers. Also for book clubs that like a review of the current science in a publicly available presentation.
I liked it.
It's a hopelessly romantic book, but If nothing else she has been able to articulate something I have found so difficult to explain. Rocks to a geologist aren't nouns they are verbs. They have stories to tell about the past and the future.
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333.7 |