As the talks for COP26 get underway, we are pleased to announce a global wave of facilitated Deep Time Walk’s on November 6th, 2021 – the designated day of mass mobilisation for the climate talks at COP26. Activists and community leaders from across the world are bringing a deep time aspect to the ecological and climate emergency and highlighting the importance of these crucial talks at this critical juncture for our human family.
Starting away from the crowds, our network of passionate changemakers are slowing down by facilitating in-person Deep Time Walk’s in their local communities, taking people on a journey which reweaves our human family back into the fabric of the living Earth. Although our method is different, our broader calls to governments at the end of the walk are aligned – indeed many of the walks will echo the demands for climate justice set out by the COP26 Coalition.
Participants who join one of these Deep Time Walks will be able to:
- Comprehend the vastness of Earth’s 4.6 billion year history by walking across a 4.6 km geological timeline of Earth, experiencing how humans have evolved in the blink of a geological eye.
- Gain a sense of the high-level, macro-evolutionary story of Earth, learning about the coevolution of life with the environment and understand the story of our human family as deeply entangled with that of the Earth.
- Understand that the Earth is not a static, passive backdrop on which humans reside, but a set of complex interrelated active actors which have in themselves agency to move and dramatically change the Earth’s systems.
- Help participants overcome a widespread ‘temporal illiteracy’ and develop an appreciation of the long arc of deep time, helping people develop a sense of what Marcia Bjornerud calls ‘timefulness’.
- Understand through the latest peer reviewed science the impact that humans are having on the Earth, initiating the sixth mass extinction.
- Appreciate the gifts from deep time fostering people to become what Jonas Salk calls ‘good ancestors’, to consider their decisions based on long-term, intergenerational justice.
- Obtain a transformative, deep experience that leads people into a profound connection and love of their local place.
- Provide a rich set of hope-filled narratives for humanity, to inspire people to take urgent personal action and collective advocacy to address the climate and ecological emergency.