Global Catastrophes

The author of this engaging and at times chilling book is professor emeritus of geophysical climate hazards at UCL. The book begins with the arresting statistic that over 100,000 people on average lose their lives in natural disasters every year. Only a small proportion of the worst incidents reach the newspapers but the overall impact is very considerable. McGuire begins with a potted history of the Earth, which turns out to be a much more dangerous place then we might immediately realise, depending on where we live. There are 150 earthquakes a year over Richter Scale six and some 50 active volcanoes; and around 25,000 people a year are killed in floods. The author pulls no punches on global warming, spelling out the likely catastrophic effects of runaway climate change by the year 2100, making the world a much more hazardous place for future generations. He takes a sanguine view of attempts at geo-engineering as a desperate way of trying to maintain economic growth and business as usual. He discusses the possible advent of much colder conditions in Europe as a result of the slowing down of major ocean currents before moving on to super eruptions, giant tsunamis (the potential for a shelf under the Canary Islands to slip will cause tidal waves of 50 m high on the east coast of America), and the inevitable Tokyo earthquake now quite a number of years overdue in terms of its historical rhythm. Finally, we have threats from outer space from asteroids and comets. If this sounds like a grim reading, it is, but we should be aware of these possibilities and actions that can be taken within reason. These mainly apply to global warming, and it does now seem that this challenge is being taken very much more seriously, although it is still unlikely that action will be taken on a sufficient scale prevent some of the prospects described in this book. And there is one really dangerous joker in the pack. The Arctic tundra contains 1 trillion tons of methane and it is possible that a 50 million ton 'burp' could occur, even in the next ten years, which would immediately raise global average temperatures by 1.3 degrees C.