Book Report: Timefulness

50. Marcia Bjornerud, Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World (2018) (1/28/19)

And with this book, I meet my goal of fifty since January 28 of last year! I even made an effort to finish with a non–picture book (because I am, most of the time, an adult), and one that might provoke some thoughtfulness on my part. This one proved perfect. I learned a lot about geology, climate, time, change, equilibrium, rocks, chemistry, glaciers, fossils, and so much more. Well, actually, I probably "learned" just a fraction of all the fascinating science that is packed into this relatively short book of six chapters plus prologue and epilogue. My mind is not especially scientific—i.e. read: analytic—and my grasp of chemistry, physics, and the like is approximately nil. But still, I enjoyed this broad look into deep time, including the philosophical ramifications of It All.

This is popular science at its best. Bjornerud does a good job of contextualizing geology by bringing it home to place. And her facility with similes and analogies is spot-on. For example, in discussing the use of lead isotopes to arrive at the age of the Earth (4.5 billion years), she likens two radiogenic lead isotopes (derived from radioactive decay of uranium) to the cumulative earnings from two savings accounts, one with a high interest rate that allows rapid withdrawals to be made, the other with a lower interest rate that is drawn down more slowly; while a third, nonradiogenic isotope (that is, it starts out as lead) is like money hidden under a mattress. The earth itself she likens to a peach: the pit is the core, the flesh is the mantle, the skin is the crust, and the fuzz is the atmosphere. Works for me!

The chapters that I found most compelling were 2, "An Atlas of Time," where she covers the discoveries and thinking of foundational scientists such as Hutton, Lyell, and Darwin in the 18th and 19th centuries, up to big theories as mind-blowingly recent as the 1960s (plate tectonics and understanding of midoceanic ridges) and 1980s (the precise dating of the end of the Cretaceous period via the Mayan Peninsula's Chicxulub Crater)—even as we continue (eternally, no doubt) to revise our set of knowledge about this planet; and 6, "Timefulness: Utopian and Scientific," where she argues that humankind seriously needs a much more profound grasp of and appreciation for time both past and future, not just present, which is what economic models of value would ask us to focus on. As she puts it, "Stranded in the island of now, we are lonely." Not just lonely, but headed down a treacherous path.

In chapter 6, Bjornerud references the works of various artists as a means of better appreciating time. One is a project by photographer Rachel Sussman, who traveled around the world taking formal portraits of living organisms older than 2,000 years: The Oldest Living Things in the World. "These Old Ones," Bjornerud writes," open our eyes to alternative relationships with time. They help us, vicariously, to see beyond the horizon of our own mortal limits."

Yes, my mind grasps art and philosophy better than science. But in fact, both are crucial to our fate on this planet, and to the fate of this planet. We need imagination and close observation; creative approaches that transcend fiscal cycles; appreciation of the vast complexity of this endlessly evolving miracle that we call home.

For me, geology points to a middle way between the sins of narcissistic pride in our importance and existential despair at our insignificance. It affirms a teaching attributed to the eighteenth-century Polish Rabbi Simcha Bunim that we should all carry two slips of paper in our pockets: one that says "I am ashes and dust," and one that reads "The world was made for me." . . . If widely adopted, an attitude of timefulness could transform our relationships with nature, our fellow humans, and ourselves. Recognizing that our personal and cultural stories have always been embedded in larger, longer—and still elapsing—Earth stories might save us from environmental hubris. We might learn to place less value on novelty and disruption, and develop respect for durability and resilience. . . . Understanding how things have come to be the way they are, what has perished and what has persisted, makes it easier to recognize the differences between the ephemeral and the eternal. Growing old requires one to shed the illusion that there is only one version of the world.

If you're interested in reading more about "timefulness," here is an op-ed that Bjornerud published recently in the Los Angeles Times. I find it a wise approach indeed.