Life on Earth by David Attenborough

By Rob Terry, Executive Director

At 4.5 billion-years-old, the Earth’s age is nearly impossible for the human mind to comprehend. With a fleeting 79-year lifespan and the habit of calling events that occurred a meager 5,000 years ago “ancient,” attempting to think about the full 3.8-billion-year span during which there has been life on this planet can make one’s brain feel as if it is at risk of dismantling. Early in his sweeping epic, Life on Earth, David Attenborough (perhaps best known for narrating BBC’s stunning nature series ‘Planet Earth”) contextualizes human presence on the planet by conceptually condensing the entirety of life on Earth into one calendar year (each second therefore representing 144 years). In this model, the first microorganisms developed just after midnight on January 1st, and at present the clock would read 11:59:59 pm.

In order to help his readers better understand the full sweep of life on Earth, David Attenborough poses the simple question, “on what month and day did humans arrive?” What do you think? March? No, too soon… maybe some time in the fall, perhaps late October. With the entirety of life on earth condensed into a single calendar year, humans arrived at 11:56 p.m. on December 31st. We’ve been here for four minutes! Four! Minutes! In fact, it has only been 2 seconds since the industrial revolution. Two seconds! Life on Earth delves deeply into all that preceded our arrival, tracing the development of life on the planet for the 11 months, 30 days, 23 hours, and 56 minutes prior to our arrival (or approximately 3.899 billion years abandoning the life-in-a-year metaphor).

From the age of the protists to the mossy pioneers that first ventured out of the water, David Attenborough manages to tell the story of the cyclical rise and fall of life on the planet in a narrative that captures, and holds, the imagination. Attenborough explores the emergence of flight, the unlikelihood of the platypus, and countless evolutionary successes and failures to the delight of the reader. There are many reasons to read, or listen to, this beautiful book. Equal parts fascinating, unsettling, inspiring, and occasionally terrifying, more than anything else, Life on Earth is deeply humbling. At a time when we face a precipitous decline in biodiversity coupled with an unsettling rise in global temperatures, this book provides an important perspective. Life on Earth offers a necessary reminder that, while it is not too late to take action, we simply cannot act soon enough or with too much resolve.