The Anthropocene Reviewed

The Anthropocene Reviewed is John Green reviewing facets of the human-built world on a five-point scale, from the plague to Diet Dr Pepper to a particular sunset.

Each essay is personal, researched, and scored. The number is a joke that becomes a way to hold a feeling still. Green wrote them through illness and through the early pandemic, and the voice knows it.

The show is a rare essay series that people finished and then reread in print. Audio is the better version if you want the timing of his hesitations.

The feed is a completed book in episodes. Listen in any order, but the later ones talk back to the earlier scores.