meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Emergence Magazine Podcast

On Time and Water – a conversation with Andri Snær Magnason

Emergence Magazine Podcast

Emergence Magazine

Natural Sciences, Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture, Science, Spirituality

4.7628 Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Andri Snær Magnason is an Icelandic writer and documentary filmmaker. In this interview, Andri discusses his book On Time and Water and our relationship to time in an age of ecological crisis. With Iceland having lost its first large glacier, the Ok glacier, this past summer—Andri discusses the ways in which geological time is beginning to move at the speed of human time. In order to bring about a planetary paradigm shift, he says, we need new ways to see and imagine ourselves into the future. This interview was originally released on the Emergence Podcast on December 9th, 2019.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Emergence Magazine's podcast. I'm Emanuel Vaughn Lee, executive editor of Emergence

0:08.1

magazine, located on the unseated ancestral lands of the Coast Mewalk people of present-day

0:14.7

Marin County. Each week, we feature a new interview, narrated essay, or story, exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality.

0:31.6

In late 2019, just prior to the pandemic, I traveled to Iceland, where I interviewed Andrei Sniere Magneson,

0:40.3

a prolific Icelandic writer, documentary filmmaker, an environmental activist.

0:45.3

It was a wide-ranging conversation, but one that centered around his most recent book,

0:51.3

on Time and Water, where Andre explores our relationship to time in an age of ecological

0:56.9

crisis. With Iceland having lost its first large glacier, the Uck Glacier, in 2019,

1:04.6

Andre spoke about the ways in which geological time is beginning to move at the speed of human time.

1:22.6

Andre, you've had quite a varied career as a writer, an environmental activist, and even running for president of Iceland. Yes.

1:23.6

And your work as a writer is just as varied, from poetry and children's books to science fiction and nonfiction.

1:32.1

Yet, running through all of your work is the desire to take on big issues.

1:38.8

Consumerism, the hubris of technology, climate change, and recently you've been writing about time, both in the

1:46.3

Casket of Time and Now in your most recent book on Time and Water.

1:51.4

And the books are really very different.

1:55.3

Casket of Time being a fantastical young adult novel and Time and Water being a work of nonfiction that's deeply

2:04.1

personal and an exploration of the environmental crisis and yet time connects them and not just in

2:12.2

their titles what is it that has drawn you to write about time? Why is it so important to you?

2:20.0

The casket of time and on time and water, they are kind of siblings, creative siblings, you could say.

2:26.9

They both come out of kind of experiencing time now having left geological speed or nature having left geological speed and starting to change in human speed.

2:39.0

About our reactions to this environmental crisis are on a geological level.

2:46.0

On contrary to what we have been doing in technology and progress and change during the 20th century,

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Emergence Magazine, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Emergence Magazine and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.