[Silence]
\n[Arrangement: Low ambient drone. Slow pulsing bass. Distant wind textures. Sparse piano notes like falling ice.]<\/p>\n
[Intro]
\nHow long…
\n(Do you think it takes?)
\nHow long…
\n(Before it breaks?)<\/p>\n
A frozen memory
\n(Deep in time)
\nOlder than stories
\n(Older than rhyme)<\/p>\n
[Instrumental Intro: Pulsing Bass, Organ Swell, Muted Guitar Chops, Rising Synth Filter]<\/p>\n
[Spoken Vocal over minimal beat]
\nHow long does it take to make the ice?
\n(Hmmm… before you answer, better think twice)<\/p>\n
[Instrumental Break]
\n[Guitar Solo: sustained notes, slow bending tones like cracking ice]
\n[Organ Stabs, Driving Bass, Snare March]<\/p>\n
[Chorus]
\nHow long does it take to make the ice?
\n(Before you answer, better think twice)
\nIt takes a long, long, long, long time
\n(You could call it… humanity’s crime)<\/p>\n
How long does it take to hold the cold?
\n(Stories written in glaciers old)
\nIt takes a world beyond our care
\n(A patient earth… less of us there)<\/p>\n
[Refrain]
\n6 million years
\n(Of falling tears)<\/p>\n
6 million years
\n(Through shifting spheres)<\/p>\n
6 million years
\n(Kept in arrears)<\/p>\n
6 million years
\n(And disappearing here)<\/p>\n
[Verse 1]
\nLayer upon layer
\n(Year upon year)
\nPressure turns memory
\n(Into crystal clear)<\/p>\n
Snow becomes silence
\n(And silence becomes stone)
\nA record of ages
\n(No longer our own)<\/p>\n
[Instrumental: piano motif with slow organ swell]<\/p>\n
[Chorus]
\nHow long does it take to make the ice?
\n(Before you answer, better think twice)
\nIt takes a long, long, long, long time
\n(You could call it… humanity’s crime)<\/p>\n
What disappears in a moment\u2019s heat
\n(Took eons to complete)<\/p>\n
[Refrain]
\n6 million years
\n(Of falling tears)<\/p>\n
6 million years
\n(The record clears)<\/p>\n
6 million years
\n(And the future nears)<\/p>\n
6 million years
\n(Still nobody hears)<\/p>\n
[Bridge]
\nNot everything lost
\n(Can be remade)
\nNot every footprint
\n(Can be unmade)<\/p>\n
The clock doesn\u2019t rewind
\n(It only bends)
\nAnd what we erase
\n(Doesn\u2019t pretend)<\/p>\n
[Instrumental: Rising synth, full band swell, then drop to minimal piano]<\/p>\n
[Final Chorus]
\nHow long does it take to make the ice?
\n(Before you answer, better think twice)
\nIt takes a long, long, long, long time
\n(And never comes back in our lifetime)<\/p>\n
How long does it take to understand?
\n(What slips through our hands)
\nIt takes a world learning how to see
\n(What used to simply be)<\/p>\n
[Outro]
\nHow long…
\n(Too long to replace)
\nHow long…
\n(A vanishing place)<\/p>\n
How long…
\n(We\u2019re asking now)
\nHow long…
\n(We\u2019re answering how)<\/p>\n
[Spoken]
\nHow long do you think it takes to make six-million-year-old ice?
\n(Said with tears and fears:)
\nThe answer, of course, is millions of years.<\/p>\n
About the Song
\nUnfortunately, we have already lost things that cannot be replaced or restored.<\/p>\n
One of my favorite questions for people who dismiss the significance of climate change is simple:<\/p>\n
How long do you think it takes to make six-million-year-old ice?<\/p>\n
The answer, of course, is millions of years.<\/p>\n
When ancient glaciers, ice sheets, ecosystems, coral reefs, forests, and species disappear, they do not return on timescales relevant to human civilization. Some losses are effectively permanent from the perspective of any society that will exist over the coming centuries or even millennia.<\/p>\n
The reality is that many of the changes now unfolding across the Earth system cannot be reversed within a human lifetime. Yet this does not mean that the future is predetermined or that human actions no longer matter.<\/p>\n
In fact, they matter enormously.<\/p>\n