Global Catastrophes: A Very Short Introduction Very Short Introductions are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide. The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes – a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology. 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Griffiths Freud Anthony Storr MODERN ART David Cottington Galileo Stillman Drake MODERN IRELAND Senia Pasˇe t a Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh MOLECULES Philip Ball GLOBAL CATASTROPHES MUSIC Nicholas Cook Bill McGuire Myth Robert A. Segal GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger NATIONALISM Steven Grosby GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner HABERMAS NINETEENTH-CENTURY James Gordon Finlayson BRITAIN Christopher Harvie HEGEL Peter Singer and H. C. G. Matthew HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood NORTHERN IRELAND HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson Marc Mulholland HINDUISM Kim Knott PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close HISTORY John H. Arnold paul E. P. Sanders HOBBES Richard Tuck Philosophy Edward Craig HUMAN EVOLUTION PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Bernard Wood Samir Okasha HUME A. J. Ayer PLATO Julia Annas IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden POLITICS Kenneth Minogue Indian Philosophy POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Sue Hamilton David Miller Intelligence Ian J. Deary POSTCOLONIALISM Robert Young ISLAM Malise Ruthven POSTMODERNISM JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves Christopher Butler JUDAISM Norman Solomon POSTSTRUCTURALISM Jung Anthony Stevens Catherine Belsey KAFKA Ritchie Robertson PREHISTORY Chris Gosden KANT Roger Scruton PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner Catherine Osborne Psychology Gillian Butler and SOCIALISM Michael Newman Freda McManus SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce QUANTUM THEORY Socrates C. C. W. Taylor John Polkinghorne THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR RENAISSANCE ART Helen Graham Geraldine A. Johnson SPINOZA Roger Scruton ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway STUART BRITAIN John Morrill ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler TERRORISM Charles Townshend RUSSELL A. C. Grayling THEOLOGY David F. Ford RUSSIAN LITERATURE THE HISTORY OF TIME Catriona Kelly Leofranc Holford-Strevens THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION TRAGEDY Adrian Poole S. A. Smith THE TUDORS John Guy SCHIZOPHRENIA TWENTIETH-CENTURY Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan SCHOPENHAUER THE VIKINGS Julian D. Richards Christopher Janaway Wittgenstein SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer A. C. Grayling SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman SOCIAL AND CULTURAL THE WORLD TRADE ANTHROPOLOGY ORGANIZATION John Monaghan and Peter Just Amrita Narlikar Available soon: AFRICAN HISTORY INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS John Parker and Richard Rathbone Paul Wilkinson ANGLICANISM Mark Chapman JAZZ Brian Morton CHAOS Leonard Smith MANDELA Tom Lodge CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy PERCEPTION Richard Gregory CONTEMPORARY ART PHILOSOPHY OF LAW Julian Stallabrass Raymond Wacks Derrida Simon Glendinning PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn PSYCHIATRY Tom Burns THE FIRST WORLD WAR RACISM Ali Rattansi Michael Howard THE RAJ Denis Judd FUNDAMENTALISM THE RENAISSANCE Jerry Brotton Malise Ruthven ROMAN EMPIRE HIV/AIDS Alan Whiteside Christopher Kelly ROMANTICISM Duncan Wu For more information visit our web site www.oup.co.uk/general/vsi/ Bill McGuire GLOBAL CATASTROPHES A Very Short Introduction 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Bill McGuire 2002 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published in hardback as A Guide to the End of the World 2002 First published as a Very Short Introduction 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data McGuire, Bill, 1954– Global catastrophes : a very short introduction / Bill McGuire.—1st ed. Rev. ed. of: A guide to the end of the world / Bill McGuire. 2002. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978–0–19–280493–8 (alk. paper) 1. Natural disasters— Popular works. I. McGuire, Bill, 1954– Guide to the end of the world. II. Title. GB5018.M34 2006 363.34—dc22 2005028864 ISBN 0–19–280493–6 978–0–19–280493–8 13579108642 Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press Ltd., Gosport, Hampshire Contents Preface ix List of illustrations xv 1 A Very Short Introduction to the Earth 1 2 Global Warming: A Lot of Hot Air? 23 3 The Ice Age Cometh 44 4 The Enemy Within: Super-Eruptions, Giant Tsunamis, and the Coming Great Quake 62 5 The Threat from Space: Asteroid and Comet Impacts 89 Epilogue 113 Appendix A: Threat Timescale 117 Appendix B: Geological Timescale Earth 118 Further reading 119 Index 124 For Jetsam, Driftwood, and the late, lamented Flotsam Preface – Where will it all end? Que será, será Whatever will be will be The future’s not ours to see Que será, será Jay Livingston and Ray Evans The big problem with predicting the end of the world is that, if proved right, there can be no basking in glory. This has not, though, dissuaded armies of Cassandras from predicting the demise of our planet or the human race, only to expire themselves without the opportunity to proclaim ‘I told you so’. To somewhat adapt the words of the great Mark Twain, the death of our race has been greatly exaggerated. The big question is, however, how long will this continue to be the case? In answer, it would be perfectly reasonable to say that of course the world is going to end – in about 5 billion years time when our Sun finally runs out of fuel and swells to become a bloated red giant that burns the Earth to a cinder. On the other hand, a fervent eschatologist would undoubtedly contest this, launching into an enthusiastic account of the many alternative and imaginative ways in which our world and our race might meet its end sooner, of which disease, warfare, natural catastrophe, and exotic physics experiments gone wrong are but a selection. Given the current state ix of the planet you too might be forgiven for having second thoughts following such a litany – perhaps, after all, we will face ‘doom soon’ as John Leslie succinctly put it in his book The End of the World, rather than ‘doom deferred’. Against a background of accelerating