Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World

The subhead on this book hints at a hopefulness that isn’t really in the book.

Basically, up until now the Earth has moved through various geologic stages on its own. We’re entering a new stage where the catalyst for global change is coming from human intervention (much of it a by-product of our industrialization). So, we don’t know what’s going to happen because there’s no lesson to be applied. It’s depressing. It’s scary. It’s demoralizing. It’s also true. We’re fucked.

But … acknowledging that – really accepting it – will allow us to deal with it.

Humans are horrible at planning in advance. Greed and self-interest prevent us from anticipating, and acting, in ways that can make the future smoother and better. But we are pretty good at responding, and that ability is going to be very necessary in the years to come when the Earth’s rhythms are upended because of climate change.

This is a good book. It’s well written. It’s interesting. But the problem is that people who need to read this won’t ever find it. People who already have an appreciation for the future, who understanding that they’re just a small part of a timeline that stretches back and stretches forward further than anyone can really imagine, will gravitate to the notions of “timefulness.” But they’re already converts.

The people who need a paradigm shift are the short-term thinkers, the self-interested gluttons, the smug industrialists who believe we are masters of nature, and the stubborn / naive / simpleminded fools.

This book doesn’t really follow through on the second part of the title: “How thinking like a geologists can help save the world.” It doesn’t offer ways to help people do that. It doesn’t offer ways to get people who don’t think that way to open their eyes. Rather, it talks about the glories of geology and the Earth’s long, pre-human history and it kind of assumes that enthusiasm for these things will lead to motivation. But it won’t, and that’s a shame because long-term thinking absolutely is the key to a better future.

(That said, the idea floated by the author of creating a cabinet-level position for “Secretary of the Future” is a tremendous idea. Also, this book reminded me–and brought a bit of comfort–in the notion that we’re not really ruining the Earth; we’re ruinining our ability to live on the Earth. If we extinguish ourselves because we’re fucking morons, the Earth will eventually move on and recover.)