Blind to the End

The time-scale is our conceptual problem. Tectonic events happen on a scale of hundreds to millions of years. Most humans find it hard to think beyond the life spans of their grandchildren. There is a psychological fault line between the human and the natural calibration of the world. Incomprehension fosters a kind of rose-tinted amnesia. If anything, the comparative comfort of modern (at least Western) life makes disasters the more unthinkable. We don't want to know.

Richard Fortey ,the senior paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, is the author of "Earth: An Intimate History."