Surviving Armageddon: Solutions for a Threatened Planet [Hardcover]

Bill McGuire (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 14, 2005

What do earthquakes, magma, asteroid 1950DA, and global warming have in common? All are very real natural disasters, already under way; all are also the focus of intensive work by scientists, aimed at preventing, predicting, or at least limiting their impact on civilization.

Using the latest chilling data and taking care to draw a clear line between scientific fact and fiction, McGuire discusses the various ways that scientists have already started to prepare for survival.
Solutions on earth range from 'space reflectors' to prevent global warming, to pressure-relieving 'robot excavators' to stop volcanic eruptions. In space, NASA is developing rocket motors to gently nudge asteroids out of Earth's path, and plans to have all threatening asteroids larger than 1km detected by 2008, thereby enabling us to predict possible collisions up to 2880.

The book provides the strategies to the problems we face, and concludes optimistically with ways in which we can use technology to protect our society and planet from global catastrophe.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A volcanologist by training, McGuire discusses large-scale natural disasters in a concise volume for general readers. The treatment is scientific, but the chapter headings and suggested further reading are more in keeping with a popular audience. Illustrations feature effects of such disasters and proposed solutions (e.g., a giant orbiting mirror to reflect the sun's rays back into space to reduce global warming)."--Reference & Research Book News

"This book looks at the major threats to our planet, assesses the solutions that have been proposed, both bizarre and realistic, and concludes that there really are ways to at least limit, if not prevent, the damage caused by future disasters."--Natural Hazards Observer

About the Author

Bill McGuire is Professor of Geohazards and Director of the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre. He has authored or edited over a hundred books, papers, and articles, including Apocalypse - a Natural History of Global Disasters; Raging Planet - the Tectonic Threat to Life on Earth; and A Guide to the End of the World - Everything you Never Wanted to Know (OUP 2002). A regular contributor to radio, television, and the press on hazard-related matters, he was the focus of the Carlton Television First Edition programme Disaster Man in 1999 and has presented two disaster-related series for BBC Radio 4.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (July 14, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192805711
• ISBN-13: 978-0192805713
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,825,270 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Read it and weep!, June 6, 2011

By 

Mike Mellor "Shadeburst" (Sandton, RSA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Surviving Armageddon: Solutions for a Threatened Planet (Kindle Edition)

Global Geophysical Events or Gee-Gees are catastrophes large enough to kill millions of humans and even to threaten our very survival.

Included are earthquakes, volcano super-eruptions, tsunamis, asteroid/comet impact, and global warming.

Bill McGuire explains why each of these can justifiably be called a global threat. Then he discusses what, if anything, can be done to minimise the damage caused.

Right now, for example, a tsunami is waiting to be triggered that would kill half a billion people and wipe out all cities on the coasts of the North Atlantic. It could happen tomorrow, it could happen in ten millenia. And we can't do a thing about it.

In spite of his fast-paced punchy style, McGuire is not a journalist, but a leading geophysical scientist. The text is readable and, more important, it's quotable too! This book will arm you with the facts and reasoning needed to win any after-dinner skeptics' debate.

McGuire, like most earth scientists, is passionately trying to warn the world to reverse global warming. I'm with him there, but he lost some of my sympathy when he represented cold fusion and other woo-woo "inventions" as being genuine but unlucky, instead of the intellectual shams they really are.

This book will stay close to my desk so that I can refer to it often.