Story Timeline:

In order to make comprehensible the vast tract of human time on this planet 5,000 times shorter than the age of the universe. I will compare the 2.5–3 million years presence of humans (genus Homo) on Earth to a 75 years human lifespan to a span that we can grasp more intuitively. On this scale, we then get the following analogous periods:

• First 70 years: various species of humans evolve and coexist (sustainably) on the planet.
• Last 5 years: the age of Homo Sapiens (about 200,000 years mostly sustainably).
• Last 15 weeks: the age of civilization (agriculture, then cities) (10,000 years).
• Last 4 days: the age of science (400 years).
• Last 36 hours: the age of fossil fuels (150 years of increasingly significant use).
• Last 12 hours: the age of rapid global ecological devastation (50 years).