Long Now Foundation Thinks 10,000 Years Ahead

 

The non-profit Long Now Foundation works to solve problems like climate change, disease and the loss of languages.

But it recently started an unusual project that could help support all its causes.

Inside a mountain cave in Texas, the group is building a huge clock. But, not one you would use to plan your day around.

This clock will tick just once a year. Every 100 years, it will make a louder, bong sound. And, each thousand years, the clock will release a cuckoo sound.

The foundation says the 150-meter-tall clock is to opearate for at least 10,000 years.

So, what it is for?

Alexander Rose is the executive director of Long Now. He says the clock is a symbol of the importance of long-term thinking.

“There’s certain problems such as climate change, or education or things like that that can only be solved if you’re thinking on a multi-generational or even longer time frame.”

Rose notes the black-footed ferret as an example. Long Now’s Revise and Restore project is working to save the endangered animal. The animal is threatened by habitat loss but also by an old disease called plague.

The Long Now Foundation is trying to make the ferret resistant¹ to plague by changing the animal’s DNA². Rose says Revise and Restore is also trying to bring back the wooly³ mammoth⁴. It went out of existence many thousands of years ago.

“We’re sitting on the cusp of one of the very first times in human history where we can do that. That project has been pulling together different scientists as well as ecologists to figure out not only what species we could do but what species we should do to help the environment.”

Disappearing languages is another Long Now concern. Experts say thousands of rare human languages could disappear in the next 80 years. One of them is Arapaho, a Native American language. William C’Hair of the Northern Arapaho Language and Culture Commission still speaks it.

“It is necessary to retain our language, which is our identity.”

The foundation is working with language experts and native speakers to keep these languages alive. It has created small devices called Rosetta Disks that can hold thousands of pages of texts in more than 1,000 languages.

Heather Ryan is the director of archives at the University of Colorado. She has helped the Long Now Foundation with the Rosetta Project since 2007.

Ryan says the disks will help people who live on Earth thousands of years from now.

“Looking 10,000 years into the future, somebody could come across and pick up the fact that there’s information etched on here. We can then find clues to all the languages of human civilization over time.”

The Long Now Foundation also supports live and recorded public speaking by creative thinkers like Larry Brilliant. He is a doctor who studies the spread of diseases. He helped the World Health Organization end the disease smallpox⁵. Dr. Brilliant’s audience says such talks lead them to think about the future

“Eventually, I want to make a difference in the world.”

“We have to have a long-term view in order to have a long-term life.”

Using long-term thinking to make a difference in the world is exactly what the Long Now Foundation is trying to do…before the big clock stops.

Words in This Story

tick - n. a small, quick sound made by a clock.

cuckoo - n. a type of bird with a call that sounds like its name

frame - n. basic structure

on the cusp - expression, at the point when something is about to change to something else

ecologist - n. a scientist who studies relationships between groups of living things and their environment

species - n. a group of related animals or plants

archive - a place in which public records or historical materials are kept

disk - n. a flat, thin round object used to store information

etch - v. to produce a pattern, design etc. often used figuratively

1 resistant   

adj.(to)抵抗的，有抵抗力的

参考例句：

• Many pests are resistant to the insecticide.许多害虫对这种杀虫剂有抵抗力。
• They imposed their government by force on the resistant population.他们以武力把自己的统治强加在持反抗态度的人民头上。

2 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

3 wooly   

adj.毛茸茸的；糊涂的

参考例句：

• I like the feel of this cloth and it has a warm wooly feel.我喜欢这块布的手感,它摸上去毛茸茸的很暖和。
• He wore a brown t-shirt with jeans and a pair of shoes,with a wooly hat covering his hair.小贝身穿一件棕色t恤，搭配牛仔裤和皮鞋，头戴一顶盖住头发的羊毛帽子。

4 mammoth   

n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的

参考例句：

• You can only undertake mammoth changes if the finances are there.资金到位的情况下方可进行重大变革。
• Building the new railroad will be a mammoth job.修建那条新铁路将是一项巨大工程。

5 smallpox   

n.天花

参考例句：

• In 1742 he suffered a fatal attack of smallpox.1742年，他染上了致命的天花。
• Were you vaccinated against smallpox as a child?你小时候打过天花疫苗吗？