I was watching Catastrophe on Channel 4 last night. The episode was called ‘Snowball Earth’ and was about how, around 650 million years ago, the entire planet was encased in ice several miles thick. It stayed that way for about 20 million years until a chain reaction of volcanic eruptions spewed out billions of tons of carbon dioxide which warmed the planet (as it does today) and thawed the ice in a relatively speedy million years or so. The melting ice created huge amounts of oxygen which enabled complex life forms to evolve from the bacteria that was able to survive the ice age. It’s a brilliant programme that I highly recommend.
These unimaginable timescales never cease to fascinate me but I’m guilty of being short sighted most of the time. I often think to myself that Creative Year was too ambitious and that I’ll never be able to keep it up for twelve months because it’s just too long. A whole year? What was I thinking? So, with Catastrophe in mind, I thought I’d put this project of mine into context. I hope it makes sense.
So, really, a year isn’t so long after all. I guess I’ll press on.
