On Time and Water

Andri Snær Magnason, Lytton Smith

• Publisher: Open Letter
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781948830287
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

In the next hundred years, the nature of water on Earth will undergo a fundamental change. Glaciers will melt, the level of the sea will rise, and its acidity will change more than it has in the past 50 million years. These changes will affect all life on earth, everyone that we know, and everyone that we love. It is more complex than the mind can comprehend, greater than all of our past experience, bigger than language. What words can grasp an issue of this magnitude?In an attempt to capture this vast issue, Andri Snær Magnason takes both a personal and a scientific approach—weaving his way through climate science via ancient legends about sacred cows, stories of ancestors and relatives, and interviews with the Dalai Lama. The resulting narrative is at once a travel story, a world history, and a reminder to live in harmony with future generations.

Index

Note: Most Icelandic names comprise a given name plus a patronymic (ending –son or –dóttir) that indicates family origin but usually changes with each generation. Inverting these seems unhelpful so, while Charles Lindbergh appears at “L,” John Thorbjarnarson will be found under “J” rather than “T.” Italic page references lead to full-page illustrations; “n” refers to one of the numbered endnotes (indexed only very selectively) after page 324.

The index that appeared in the print version of this title was intentionally removed from the eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

A

accidents, fishing

acidity see ocean acidification; pH scale

Activ of London, (schooner)

agricultural inefficiency

Air Ground Rescue Team (FBSR)

aircraft / air travel

emissions in a wider context

“flight shame” (flygskam)

Grandma Hulda’s enthusiasms

Keflavik dance performance

as symbolic of progress

wreck on Vatnajökull glacier

Alaska

alphabets, evolution

Althing see parliaments

aluminium industry

anacondas

animal feed

Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir

Anní Ólafsdóttir

Anthropocene era

apartment at Ásvallagata

apathy and fatalism

as protective philosophy

public apathy and paralysis

apocalypse and “apausalypse”

aragonite

Arinbjörn Hersir (trawler)

Arnar Thórisson (photographer)

Arndís Thorbjarnardóttir (Grandpa Björn’s sister)

Árni Einarsson (conservationist)

Árni Kjartansson see Grandpa

Árni Árni Magnússon Institute for Medieval Studies.

Arrhennius, Svante

Attenborough, David

Audhumla (mythical cow)

author’s vision of

the Dalai Lama on

in Icelandic mythology

insight shared with Gudmundur Páll Ólafsson

possible links with Hinduism

author’s mother see Kristín Björnsdóttir

B

Backman, Edda Heidrun

Balbo, Italo

Baldvin Einarsson

banking collapse (2008)

basalt, promise for carbon sequestration

beauty, in landscapes

belief systems, collapse

Bergsöe, Jonas, Captain

Berlin Wall

Bhagavad Gita

Bíldudalur altarpiece

biodiversity

bioluminescence

bird species

chickens

eider ducks

frigate birds and pelicans

gannets and terns

geese

the great auk

sea eagles

starlings

Björn Thorbjarnarson see Grandpa Björn

Bogezi, Carol

Book of Settlements

Brahmaputra, River

brain coral (Diploria labyrinthiformis)

Buddhism

in China and Tibet

Dhammapada: The Way of Truth

interconnectedness

investigatory techniques

Mount Kailas significance

reincar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Contents
• May you live in interesting times
• A little treasure
• A future conversation
• A projection
• The all-encompassing silence of God’s great expanse
• Writer’s block
• Telling stories
• The words we do not understand
• Searching for the Holy Cow
• A visit from a holy man
• A revelation from the wrong god
• Back in time
• Crocodile dreams
• A mythology for the present
• N 64° 35.378’, w 16° 44.691’
• The mother of the universe, white as rime
• Farewell to the white giants
• The god in the steam engine
• Just more words
• See the blue sea
• Maybe everything will be all right
• Interview with the Dalai Lama, in his guest room, Dharamsala
• In a mother’s milk
• Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni
• 2050
• A future conversation
• Apausalypse Now: Covid-19 postscript
• Dedication
• Endnotes
• Photo credits
• Index