A Guide to the End of the World: Everything you never wanted to know - Hardcover

McGuire, Bill

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0192802976 ISBN 13: 9780192802972

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2002

Synopsis

The earth is an extraordinarily fragile place which is fraught with danger. A tiny rock hurtling through space, wracked by violent crustal movements and subject to dramatic climatic changes as the earth's geophysical and orbital circumstances vary. Only 10,000 years after the end of the Ice Age, the planet is sweltering in some of the highest temperatures it has ever experienced. At the same time, overpopulation and exploitation are dramatically increasing the vulnerability of modern society to natural catastrophes such as earthquakes, floods, and volcanic eruptions. As futurologists long ago discovered, predicting the future is nigh on impossible, and few of us can even start to imagine what life will be like on planet earth in a million or even a thousand years time. The real question is, however, will there be any human life here at all? The End of the World will focus on the many potential catastrophes facing our planet and our race in the future, and will address both the probabilities of these events happening and our chances of survival. The breadth of treatment will extend from discussion of the likely consequences of the current global warming experiment to the inevitable destruction of the Earth in the far future, when it is enveloped by our giant, bloated sun. In between other end of the world scenarios will be examined, including the new Ice Age, the asteroid and comet impact threat, supervolcanoes and their effects, and megatsunami.

About this title

About the Author

Bill McGuire is Professor of Geohazards and Director of the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre, University College, London. He has worked on volcanoes all over the world, including Mount Etna, Rabaul, and Mount Pinatubo, is a member of the Association of British Sciences Writers, and a regular contributor to radio, television, and the press. He recently presented his own Radio 4 series on the forces of nature, and was featured in two Horizon programs as the leading British expert on volcanoes and mega-tsunami ('tidal waves'); these documentaries scored the highest ratings of the year on BBC2 (6 million).

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0192802976
• ISBN 13: 9780192802972
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 212