On Time and Water – A Conversation with Andri Snær Magnason

The warming of the planet is ushering in changes on a mythological
scale. Oceans heat up, ice shelves melt, great floods swallow
landscapes, ancient forests are reduced to ash. In this interview
from our archive, Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason speaks about
how such incomprehensible changes are accelerating geological
timescales. Instead of playing out over millennia, vast
transformations of the Earth are now happening in the span of a
lifetime, and in rapid succession. An accompaniment to The Last Ice
Age—the third film in our Shifting Landscapes film series—this
conversation with Andri explores how we can shift our sense of time
to comprehend an uncertain future with greater clarity. Drawing on
poetry, memories, stories from his grandparents, and language that
infuses meaning into the data-led narrative of the climate crisis,
Andri turns to the power of mythology to help us comprehend both
the loss and possibility of our moment. Read the transcript. Watch
the film The Last Ice Age, by Adam Loften and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee,
the third in our four-part Shifting Landscapes documentary film
series. Photo by Gassi Olafsson. Learn more about your ad choices.
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