Surviving Armageddon: Solutions for a Threatened Planet - Hardcover

McGuire, Bill

3.3

10 ratings by Goodreads

9780192805713: Surviving Armageddon: Solutions for a Threatened Planet

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0192805711 ISBN 13: 9780192805713

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2005

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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.

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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.

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

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