The Avid Reader Show

Footprints: In search of future fossils


Listen Later

What will the world look like in ten thousand years―or ten million? What kinds of stories will be told about us?

In Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils, the award-winning author David Farrier explores the traces we will leave for the very distant future. Modern civilization has created objects and landscapes with the potential to endure through deep time, whether it is plastic polluting the oceans and nuclear waste sealed within the earth or the 30 million miles of roads spanning the planet. Our carbon could linger in the atmosphere for 100,000 years, and the remains of our cities will still exist millions of years from now as a layer in the rock. These future fossils have the potential to reveal much about how we lived in the twenty-first century.

Crossing the boundaries of literature, art, and science, Footprints invites us to think about how we will be remembered in the myths and stories of our distant descendants. Traveling from the Baltic Sea to the Great Barrier Reef, and from an ice-core laboratory in Tasmania to Shanghai, one of the world’s biggest cities, Farrier describes a world that is changing rapidly, with consequences beyond the scope of human understanding. As much a message of hope as a warning, Footprints will not only alter how you think about the future; it will change how you see the world today.
...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

The Avid Reader ShowBy Samuel Hankin

  • 3.6
  • 3.6
  • 3.6
  • 3.6
  • 3.6

3.6

43 ratings


More shows like The Avid Reader Show

View all
The Girl Next Door Podcast by Kelsey Wharton and Erica Ladd

The Girl Next Door Podcast

725 Listeners

Close Reads Podcast by Goldberry Studios

Close Reads Podcast

836 Listeners

The Daily by The New York Times

The Daily

111,044 Listeners

Up First from NPR by NPR

Up First from NPR

55,842 Listeners

Bad On Paper by Becca Freeman & Olivia Muenter

Bad On Paper

4,067 Listeners

The Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan by Mitchell Kaplan

The Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan

194 Listeners

Talk Bookish To Me by Talk Bookish To Me

Talk Bookish To Me

60 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

15,326 Listeners

My Unsung Hero by Hidden Brain

My Unsung Hero

1,153 Listeners

ZOE Science & Nutrition by ZOE

ZOE Science & Nutrition

1,981 Listeners