The first and only timeline that condenses the whole Life of Earth – past, present and future – into one year.
If 1st January is when the Earth formed and 31st December is when it will be consumed by the Sun, what would today’s date be on this imaginary calendar?
You can then browse through the months of our year and zoom in on the hours, minutes and seconds to see where we feature, and see some of the main events in the past and future of our Home. You can also see it all on the Life of Earth poster, that you can download once you’ve entered your answer.
What’s this project all about?
I’m Tim. I live in Brussels, Belgium. I want to share something I’ve been thinking about for decades. It is inspired by and dedicated to David Attenborough.
Here’s the starting point: many of us are worried about our impact on the planet.
COVID-19 made us think about the changes we would make when the pandemic would be over.
It too prompted us to think about the future.
We can say very little about the future of the Life of Earth with any certainty. Apart from how much of it there is.
Strangely, this simple fact has not made it into discussions about the environment, climate change or most recently the pandemic. Many find budgets important: what financial or human resources do we have? What constraints do we operate within?
The future is something we pay little regard to, despite all the forecasts and predictions we come up with. We know that our sun and our planet are not eternal. And we aren’t either. Many cultures, notably the dominant ones, shy away from accepting the finite nature of life, of our own lives. We need perspective, seeing how we fit into the past, present and future of the Life of Earth.
But don’t panic! There’s a lot of future left for life on Earth. How much?
To find out, first have a go yourself: if 1st January is when the Earth formed and 31st December is when it will be consumed by the Sun, what would today’s date be on this calendar?