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 high 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.
- ISBN10 0192802976
- ISBN13 9780192802972
- Publish Date 1 July 2002 (first published 21 March 2002)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 11 August 2006
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Oxford University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 212
- Language English