"...what is it that is preventing people from realising (sic) ..."

I would have to emphatically say curiosity. From curiosity comes knowledge...though not necessarily in that order.

For example...the other day I was out in the yard tilling a patch for a sunflower garden.
The tiller was kicking up lots of rocks...and unearthed this.


I was kind of thinking to myself...AMAZING!!

To the other people with me it was just a bunch of shells.

Once I mentioned that this was roughly 450 million years old...everyone was interested.
"How do you know?"
I went on to explain it was two different kinds of hebertella from the Ordovician period...when the US was at the equator.
From there it was another hour discussion on Earth science...