The last 20,000 years has seen our world flip from icehouse to greenhouse, provoking earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic outbursts. Like a giant stirring from a long sleep, the Earth beneath our feet tossed and turned. Bill McGuire argues that climate change is once more setting the scene for the giant to reawaken, and we can already see the signs.

• Preface


• 1: The storm after the calm


• 2: Once and future climate


• 3: Nice day for an eruption


• 4: Bouncing back


• 5: Earth in motion


• 6: Water, water, everywhere


• 7: Reawakening the giant


• Selected sources and further reading

Bill McGuire is an academic, science writer and broadcaster. He is currently Professor of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at UCL. Bill was a member of the UK Government Natural Hazard Working Group established in January 2005, in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami, and in 2010 a member of the Science Advisory Group in Emergencies (SAGE) addressing the Icelandic volcanic ash problem. His current research focus is the climate forcing of geological hazards. His books include Natural Hazards & Environmental Change, A Guide to the End of the World: Everything you Never Wanted to Know, Surviving Armageddon: Solutions for a Threatened Planet and - most recently - Seven Years to Save the Planet. He presented the BBC Radio 4 series, Disasters in Waiting and Scientists Under Pressure and the End of the World Reports on Channel 5 and Sky News.