Audiobook5 hours
Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World
Written by Marcia Bjornerud
Narrated by Tanya Eby
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
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."
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."
Related to Timefulness
Related audiobooks
Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hidden Life of Ice: Dispatches from a Disappearing World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swamplands: Tundra Beavers, Quaking Bogs, and the Improbable World of Peat Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Alien Oceans: The Search for Life in the Depths of Space Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Restoring the Wild: Sixty Years of Rewilding Our Skies, Woods and Waterways Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Tide: The Science and Stories Behind the Greatest Force on Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Super Volcanoes: What They Reveal about Earth and the Worlds Beyond Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Desert Notebooks: A Road Map for the End of Time Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Library of Ice: Readings from a Cold Climate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Revolutionary Genius of Plants: A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brilliant Green: The Surprising History and Science of Plant Intelligence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Defense of Plants: An Exploration into the Wonder of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trees in My Forest Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Search of Mycotopia: Citizen Science, Fungi Fanatics, and the Untapped Potential of Mushrooms Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Science & Mathematics For You
How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quantum Physics: What Everyone Needs to Know Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thinking in Systems: A Primer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Free Will Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Midnight in Chernobyl: The Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cosmos: A Personal Voyage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brain Rules (Updated and Expanded): 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Salt: A World History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radiolab: Mixtape: How The Cassette Changed The World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Timefulness
Rating: 4.424242424242424 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
66 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5An otherwise decent book that unfortunately close by using autism as a metaphor to characterize humanity as "rigid, savants [in] narrow obsessions, [and] dysfunctional."
Terrible myths that harm the neurodivergent community.1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In Tunefulness, Marcia Bjornerud makes an impassioned and eloquent argument for developing a poly-temporal worldview of time is one of Bjornerud’s objectives. A concept she calls Timefulness. Bjornerud is cautious to avoid the trap timelessness that so many geologist fall into. She contends that timelessness falsely invokes a sense of permanency and sterile aspiration, when the Earth in fact is dynamic and in a constant never ending state of change. That understanding timefulness better equips scientist to tackle the larger philosophical and practical questions posed by climate change. And that the practices of close reading and spatial visualization in geology provides material records that have documented many changes of our planet. Something that human beings are not been able to witness or experience. It is crucial that geologists take a more active role in public discourse to encourage the public to think more deeply about Earth’s multiple past and future iterations. She makes a compiling case that "fathoming deep is geology's greatest contribution to humanity".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.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is outstanding. With 5 years studying geology and 44 more years practicing geology, this book does the best job of chronologically documenting the history of earth, and human's affect on it. Within this book you will find the history of earth's natural resources and the changes in their uses for humans and their changing availability, even sustainability. Going a step further you will also learn the changing sustainability and value of our resources based on data, not arm waving. 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.