Terrestrial Time

[təˈres.tri.əl taɪm]

Related terms: Carbon Cycle, Futurity, Scale, Stratigraphy, Time-Horizon

Terrestrial time delineates the vastly different time-scales of atmosphere, geology, and the tremendous array of living beings. Each of these forms produces its own rhythm, cycles, and repetitions: the energy balance of microbes, the change in geological striations, and the exchange of molecules in the atmosphere happen on such different spans through space and time that they appear to be unrelated. In the New Climatic Regime, this separation of cyclic duration is quickly collapsing; formerly separated time-scales begin to intersect with each other. Everything solid that industrious beings have melted into thin air has made geological time – the division of long climatic periods into epochs – a potent political agent of our time.