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Footprints

In Search of Future Fossils

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Footprints

Written by: David Farrier
Narrated by: Mike Grady
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About this listen

What will the world look like in 10,000 years - or 10 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 21st 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.

©2020 David Farrier (P)2020 Tantor
Environment Nature & Ecology Social Sciences Travel Writing & Commentary Conservation Nonfiction Paleontology City Polar Region Ecosystem
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Interesting, but not captivating

With the exception of the final chapter, I found this book to be a little boring. The footprints our civilization will leave behind is an interesting concept, but when it’s inspected in detail as this book does, the result is just a grocery list of ways humans are impacting the planet. If such a list would be useful or interesting for you, then you’ll enjoy this book. Otherwise you may find it covers a lot of material you’re already familiar with.

How these impacts will be viewed by future generations and possibly incorporated into their culture is discussed, but only at a high level and only sporadically. I think I would have enjoyed the book more if this had been explored more deeply.

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