Our final hour : a scientist's warning : how terror, error, and environmental disaster threaten humankind's future in this century on earth and beyond / Martin Rees.

By:

Rees, Martin J, 1942- [author.]

Material type: Text

text

Media type:

unmediated

Carrier type:

volume

ISBN:

0465068626
9780465068623

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

303.490905 21

LOC classification:

CB161 .R38 2003

Online resources:

Contributor biographical information

Contents:

1. Prologue -- 2. Technology Shock -- 3. The Doomsday Clock: Have We Been Lucky to Survive This Long? -- 4. Post-2000 Threats: Terror and Error -- 5. Perpetrators and Palliatives -- 6. Slowing Science Down? -- 7. Baseline Natural Hazards: Asteroid Impacts -- 8. Human Threats to Earth -- 9. Extreme Risks: A Pascalian Wager -- 10. The Doomsday Philosophers -- 11. The End of Science? -- 12. Does Our Fate Have Cosmic Significance? -- 13. Beyond Earth -- 14. Epilogue.

Summary: Publisher's description: Bolstered by unassailable science and delivered in eloquent style, Our Final Hour's provocative argument that humanity has a mere 5050 chance of surviving the next century has struck a chord with readers, reviewers, and opinion-makers everywhere. Rees's vision of our immediate future is both a work of stunning scientific originality and a humanistic clarion call on behalf of the future of life.Review: "A scientist known for unraveling the complexities of the universe, Sir Martin Rees not warns that humankind is potentially the maker of its own demise - and the demise of the cosmos. With clarity and precision, Rees maps out the ways technology could destroy our species and thereby foreclose the potential of a living universe whose evolution has just begun." "Rees forecasts that the odds are no better than fifty-fifty that humankind will survive to the end of the twenty-first century. Science is advancing at an exhilarating rate, but with a dark side: Our increasingly interconnected world is vulnerable to new risks, "bio" or "cyber," terror or error. The dangers from twenty-first century technology could be graver and more intractable than the threat of nuclear devastation that we faced for decades. And human-induced pressures on the global environment may engender higher risks than the age-old hazards of earthquakes, eruptions, and asteroid impacts." "Rees explores the startling scenarios that science and technology have made possible or even likely. We could be wiped out by lethal "engineered" airborne viruses, or by rogue nano-machines that replicate catastrophically. Experiments that crash together atomic nuclei could start a chain reaction that erodes all atoms of Earth, or could even tear the fabric of space itself. Bioterror or bioerror could kill a million people within twenty years. But as Rees so eloquently reveals, it would be nearly impossible to reduce these risks without encroaching on cherished personal freedoms and the pursuit of scientific knowledge."--BOOK JACKET.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Copy number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Book	City Campus City Campus Main Collection	303.490905 REE (Browse shelf(Opens below))	1	Available		A413302B

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Previous								Next
Previous	303.490905 CLE Keys to the 21st century /	303.490905 ELK Beyond sovereignty : territory and political economy in the twenty-first century /	303.490905 HAL The next century /	303.490905 REE Our final hour : a scientist's warning : how terror, error, and environmental disaster threaten humankind's future in this century on earth and beyond /	303.490905 SAL Next now : trends for the future /	303.490905 SLA The foresight principle : cultural recovery in the 21st century /	303.49090512 LAE 2011 : trendspotting for the next decade /	Next

Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-208) and index.

Publisher's description: Bolstered by unassailable science and delivered in eloquent style, Our Final Hour's provocative argument that humanity has a mere 5050 chance of surviving the next century has struck a chord with readers, reviewers, and opinion-makers everywhere. Rees's vision of our immediate future is both a work of stunning scientific originality and a humanistic clarion call on behalf of the future of life.

"A scientist known for unraveling the complexities of the universe, Sir Martin Rees not warns that humankind is potentially the maker of its own demise - and the demise of the cosmos. With clarity and precision, Rees maps out the ways technology could destroy our species and thereby foreclose the potential of a living universe whose evolution has just begun." "Rees forecasts that the odds are no better than fifty-fifty that humankind will survive to the end of the twenty-first century. Science is advancing at an exhilarating rate, but with a dark side: Our increasingly interconnected world is vulnerable to new risks, "bio" or "cyber," terror or error. The dangers from twenty-first century technology could be graver and more intractable than the threat of nuclear devastation that we faced for decades. And human-induced pressures on the global environment may engender higher risks than the age-old hazards of earthquakes, eruptions, and asteroid impacts." "Rees explores the startling scenarios that science and technology have made possible or even likely. We could be wiped out by lethal "engineered" airborne viruses, or by rogue nano-machines that replicate catastrophically. Experiments that crash together atomic nuclei could start a chain reaction that erodes all atoms of Earth, or could even tear the fabric of space itself. Bioterror or bioerror could kill a million people within twenty years. But as Rees so eloquently reveals, it would be nearly impossible to reduce these risks without encroaching on cherished personal freedoms and the pursuit of scientific knowledge."--BOOK JACKET.

Machine converted from AACR2 source record.

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