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David Farrier

@david-farrier.bsky.social
1.5K followers 245 following 188 posts

Writer. Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils | Nature's Genius: Evolution's Lessons for a Changing Planet, shortlisted: Wainwright Conservation Writing Prize & Saltire Nonfiction Prize 2025 Professor of Literature & the Environment, Uni of Edinburgh

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Reposted by David Farrier
Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 16h
“I think it’s a shame that students are the only bargaining chip they really have. But I understand it. I would obviously rather it didn’t happen but I do get it." (Final year Geography student, University of Edinburgh, displaying a good understanding of how institutional systems work)
theguardian.com
Edinburgh joins UK universities heading for strikes as cuts spread through entire sector
Students at Edinburgh, Dundee and Nottingham face a term without any teaching as sector struggles with rising financial uncertainty
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Alice Wickenden @awickenden.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Universities are particularly ill-suited to dealing with sexual assault cases for a number of reasons.
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Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Awful. Capital overrides communities once again. Frome's bid for a community-led housing & regeneration project at Saxonvale lies in tatters: the council's agreed a deal with a London-based real estate company instead. Similar story in Totnes with Atmos project www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
theguardian.com
‘Devastating’: council rejects Frome residents’ bid for regeneration project
Locals raised £1m for Mayday Saxonvale scheme involving homes and park but Somerset officials agreed deal with London-based real estate company
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Samantha Asumadu @samanthaasumadu.substack.com · 22/09/2026
'New analysis on UK media: British media is not delivering the news to its readers. They are delivering an agenda. The seven days after Channel 4 filmed James Orr are a damning indictment of the British press. Orr is a Cambridge associate professor.' via @newscord.org
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Lesley McFadyen @lesleymcf.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Material Time. Listen!
bbc.co.uk
Illuminated - James Hutton and The Restless Earth - BBC Sounds
Plunge into the abyss of deep geological time with Karine Polwart.
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I'm so excited that this is nearly out in the word! I had the privilege of joining the amazing Karine Polwart for a walk along the Lothian coast to explore James Hutton's remarkable legacy for BBC Radio 4. Listen in this Sunday (7.15pm) or on iplayer!
James Hutton and the Restless Erath, BBC Radio 4, Sunday 9th August, 7.15pm
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
All the quiet parts spoken aloud in radio 4's eulogy for Rod Liddle 🙃
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Behind the bewildering transformation of British universities, are management consultants being paid millions Really proud to have this vital piece on our unis are being gutted from the inside by @jheathershaw.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale. Do read democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...
democracyforsale.substack.com
Inside Britain's university crisis
As teaching staff face job loss, their bosses have netted pay rises and bought advice from a “vampiric” management consultancy, writes Prof. John Heathershaw of the University of Exeter
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Well, that was no third place playoff
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Rum and the Cuillins from the Point of Sleat, Skye, glorious in the sunshine yesterday.
Rum and the Cuillins from the Point of Sleat, Skye
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
It's been a while, but for those who might be interested I've written an *actual piece of literary criticism* (on poetry, AI, and AI poetry). 'Closed Rooms and Oracles: the poetics of vector space in Sam Riviere’s Conflicted Copy' is free to read here: poetry.openlibhums.org/article/id/2...
poetry.openlibhums.org
Closed Rooms and Oracles: the poetics of vector space in Sam Riviere’s Conflicted Copy
Published one hundred years after Tristan Tzara’s instruction that poets should “copy conscientiously”, Sam Riviere’s Conflicted Copy (2024), created in collaboration with GPT-2, invites us to reconsi...
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Kathleen Jamie @kathleenjamie.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
A Noh interpretation of my 'On Rona'. Japanese tradition meets the outermost Hebrides. This is what the Edinburgh festivals are for! Thank you EIBF.
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
💚 Glasgow
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Steve Brusatte @stevebrusatte.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Tickets for my event with fellow University of Edinburgh prof @david-farrier.bsky.social on evolution. Sunday June 14, 17:45 Please come! They've scheduled us opposite Nicola Sturgeon! bordersbookfestival.citizenticket.com/events/borde...
bordersbookfestival.citizenticket.com
Steve Brusatte & David Farrier: Evolution, Adaptation and the Living World - Buy tickets
Two brilliant science writers explore how life evolves over time. Palaeontologist Steve Brusatte reveals birds as living dinosaurs, while David Farrier examines nature's adaptation today.
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
It was such a pleasure to talk to @racheldonald.bsky.social for the Planet Critical podcast!
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hannah @hannahkateboast.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
I'm losing 100% of my pay this month, and for the foreseeable future, because of management's punitive response to the marking and assessment boycott launched by @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social to try and stop compulsory redundancies. www.ucu.org.uk/article/1448...
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Josh Pizzuto-Pomaco @joshpizpom.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Sir Tom Devine: "Edinburgh’s plight is mainly due to inept decisions taken by the current Principal and his senior management group" Scatching words from one of Scotland's preeminent historians on Edinbugh Uni's financial woes. @heraldscotland.bsky.social www.heraldscotland.com/news/2611944...
heraldscotland.com
Scottish historian delivers scathing verdict on 'inept' Edinburgh University bosses
Sir Thomas Devine said that “gross failures” by Sir Peter Mathieson and his senior team have left the institution in a perilous state.
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
@btwhite.bsky.social
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Wild white bluebell
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The Portobello Bookshop @portybooks.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Happy Earth Day! To celebrate, we’ve curated a selection of shop favourites to kickstart your reading. Tonight we’re also hosting David Farrier and Louise Gray for a discussion about Farrier’s latest, Nature’s Genius! You can browse our picks here: www.theportobellobookshop.com/news/earth-d...
theportobellobookshop.com
Earth Day Recommendations
Take a look at earth day recommendations, from our Top picks news collection
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
This is happening this Wednesday! Join me @portybooks.bsky.social!
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Join me @portybooks.bsky.social on Earth Day to celebrate the genius of our living world!
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Reposting this for the weekend crowd: I wrote about Basil Bunting's poem Briggflatts and what it has to teach us about the value of deep listening.
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Kelly Hereid @kellyhereid.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils, David Farrier Rec from @markdway.bsky.social, deep time told in reverse, how our civilization might be recorded by the planet. Each chapter covers a geologic archive, paired w a reflection through literature (like ice cores/Borges Library of Babel). 20/
Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils, David Farrier
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Karl Galle @karlgalle.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Echoing @kellyhereid.bsky.social's recommendation here, @david-farrier.bsky.social Footprints is an excellent read! Also on the subject of long timescales amidst our daily chaos, I tremendously enjoyed Marcia Bjornerud's Timefulness: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb... @princetonupress.bsky.social
Book cover image for Marcia Bjornerud's "Tiimefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World"
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Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
@david-farrier.bsky.social revisits “Briggflatts,” Basil Bunting’s presicent poem warning us all of the loss of the world’s precious soundscapes.
buff.ly
On the 1966 Poem That Warns of Bio-Acoustic Die-Off and the Destruction of Our Soundscapes
The poet Basil Bunting was as old as the century when he died in 1985. His life was bookended by the relief of Ladysmith and Thatcher’s defeat of striking miners. He was imprisoned in Wormwoo…
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
To mark the paperback launch of NATURE'S GENIUS I wrote about how poetry can help us pay attention to an increasingly silent world. lithub.com/on-the-1966-...
lithub.com
On the 1966 Poem That Warns of Bio-Acoustic Die-Off and the Destruction of Our Soundscapes
The poet Basil Bunting was as old as the century when he died in 1985. His life was bookended by the relief of Ladysmith and Thatcher’s defeat of striking miners. He was imprisoned in Wormwoo…
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
NATURE'S GENIUS is out in paperback TODAY! Join me to find out how the living world can be our mentor for change on Earth Day, 22nd April, @portybooks.bsky.social tinyurl.com/mpwnphbh @canongate.co.uk
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Come to the paperback launch of NATURE'S GENIUS on World Earth Day! @portybooks.bsky.social Tickets: tinyurl.com/mpwnphbh
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Come to the paperback launch of NATURE'S GENIUS on World Earth Day! @portybooks.bsky.social Tickets: tinyurl.com/mpwnphbh
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Gaia Vince @wanderinggaia.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Lovely to see the wonderful Nature’s Genius by @david-farrier.bsky.social is out in paperback!
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The Portobello Bookshop @portybooks.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
We can’t wait for this event! Tickets available below 💚 www.theportobellobookshop.com/events/david...
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
One week until the paperback of NATURE'S GENIUS is out! What an amazing year it's been! Help me celebrate @portybooks.bsky.social on World Earth Day! tinyurl.com/yj8dxh52
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
What an amazing day! Half a million people turned out to say No to the far right.
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
I'm soon looking forward to this! Come along and celebrate World Earth Day with stories of extraordinary animal genius and human possibility.
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Just finished watching Alien: Earth and feel a bit cheated that the eye-squid-thing didn't infect the repellant tech-bro character.
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Dr Penny Hay @penahay.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Earth Spotlight 12-1pm 24 Feb! Please join us with the brilliant David Farrier, author of Nature’s Genius: Evolution's Lessons for a Changing Planet. Can we remake the world to be fit for all life to thrive once more? 💚🦋 @david-farrier.bsky.social www.ticketsource.co.uk/cccibathspa
David Farrier
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Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
I have some hot compost news
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Dr Penny Hay @penahay.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
We have some exciting events for you and they’re free! First up, please join us with brilliant colleagues @davidfarrier.bsky.social @servanemouazan.bsky.social 💚🦋 www.ticketsource.co.uk/cccibathspa
David FarrierServane Mouazan
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Nature's Genius is out today in Spanish!
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Giving this a boost, if you need a little light in the darkest month
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Reading about Kash Patel prioritising workouts over security meetings and the whole MAGA-bro obsession with strength and body-sculpting "The men are weeping in the gym ... they don't hear the thousands of tiny fracturings needed to build something stronger"
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Richard Delevan @richard.wickedproblems.earth · 23/01/2026
Bravo @ben-cooke.bsky.social. Brilliant scoop, and hard to imagine a more important one. “This government is hiding the true danger of climate change from the people”. Spooks don’t mess about when they leak. www.thetimes.com/article/4a1c...
The internal version also warned that collapsing ecosystems could motivate acts of eco-terrorism in Britain, as well as drawing NATO into conflicts over remaining breadbaskets in Russia and Ukraine. 
Described as a reasonable worst case scenario the report said that many ecosystems around the world were so stressed that they would soon pass a tipping point after which they were an inexorably degrade no matter what humans did to protect them.  forests in Canada and Russia might pass a tipping point by 2030 as my glacier in the Himalayas that fed Rivers on which 2 billion people dependent the report suggested. Intelligence chiefs warned that the decline of Himalayan rivers would almost certainly escalate tensions between China India and Pakistan potentially leading to nuclear war.Britton which imports 40% of its food including a fifth of its animal feed from South America, which struggle to feed itself unless it made expensive investments in its supply chains the authors said. These investments could include lab grown meat a new crop varieties. “This government is hiding the true danger of climate change from the people” a source close to the development of the report claimed. “We need to have an honest conversation about the risks we face to our prosperity and how to mitigate them.”
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Louisa Casson @louisacasson.bsky.social · 17/01/2026
Would you believe me if I told you a new international law dedicated to environmental protection is coming into force today? And that it covers nearly half the surface of the planet? 🌊
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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Missing from the coverage of redundancies at Edinburgh: this was done in such a haphazard, uncoordinated way, there are now core teams who have gone from 5 people to 1 with no change in workload or pressure and huge loss in knowledge of institutional process. www.heraldscotland.com/news/2576321...
heraldscotland.com
Hundreds of staff leave Edinburgh University amid cuts drive
According to the university, 345 of these departures were the result of a targeted voluntary severance (VS) scheme run by the institution in 2025.
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
I had the great pleasure of chatting with @mandascott.bsky.social for the Accidental Gods podcast. Listen here! accidentalgods.life/what-ought-w...
accidentalgods.life
What ought we be? Hope, despair and the resilience of life with Professor David Farrier
We live in an ever-changing world, but it is not always obvious what kinds of evolutionary change we are seeing in the broader web of life: in physiology, behaviour, language - and human responses to ...
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mandascott.bsky.social @mandascott.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
We live in an ever-changing world, but how thin is the ice on which we are skating? And how can we change the ways we do things so we don’t fall into the void of extinction. accidentalgods.life/what-ought-w... #AccidentalGods #Podcast
accidentalgods.life
What ought we be? Hope, despair and the resilience of life with Professor David Farrier
We live in an ever-changing world, but it is not always obvious what kinds of evolutionary change we are seeing in the broader web of life: in physiology, behaviour, language - and human responses to ...
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
The government sits and watches as Heba dies. It's heartbreaking, horrible, almost impossible to compute. Didn't people vote in the hope (however forlorn) of ending the Tories' psychopathic mode of government? Yet on it goes, under Keir Starmer. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Imprisoned hunger striker linked to Palestine Action tells friend: ‘I’m dying’
Francesca Nadin visited Heba Muraisi, 31, in a Wakefield prison at the weekend and says ‘her body is shutting down’
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
Blow-by-blow account of an extrajudicial killing. Chilling that the shooter is close enough to look the driver in the eyes as he opens fire.
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David Farrier @david-farrier.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
2026 looking good already @calflyn.bsky.social
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