Climate change is accelerating. We’re so slow to deal with it, and it has so much momentum, it could pass a tipping point while we’re still procrastinating and go into a spiral we can’t stop. What if we screw the planet up so much it becomes uninhabitable? It’s game over. End of story. Right?
Well, it depends. It depends on how important we think human beings are. The earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago. Life on earth started maybe 3.5 billion years ago. The first animals, 800 million years ago. The first mammals, 178 million years ago. First primates, 60 million years. Early humans 2.5 million years. Modern humans, maybe 350,000 years ago.
If we compress the history of life on earth, and express it as one calendar year, the earth took shape on January 1st. Life appeared on March 22nd. The first animals October 27th. the first mammals December 16th. First primates December 26th. Early humans on December 31st at about 7pm. Modern humans at 11:30 on the last day of the year. That’s how significant we are to life on earth or life in general.
Sure, from our perspective, we matter, but that’s a human-centric look. From an earth-centric perspective, we’re just a minor blip. An annoyance. If the planet has to endure a temporary fever to rid itself of an infection, it’s seen a lot worse than that. Then, it’s got another 7.5 billion years or so before it gets engulfed by the sun. For the earth, the game has just begun.