Doomsday Talk

For the most part, the majority of the population doesn’t buy in to all the “end of the world - Mayan calendar” doomsday talk. We do however seem to enjoy watching worst case scenario movies, or reading the latest book where the author claims to be able to pin point the exact time and place of the world’s demise. There’s a new book coming out next month however that doesn’t quite fit the typical doomsday mold. A WSU professor and his British astronomer cohort have collaborated in writing “Megacatastrophes!: Nine Strange Ways the World Could End”. In their book the authors visit various scientifically valid earth destroying scenarios, using their own “catastrophometer” to rate each of their nine possible calamities according to likelihood and severity. They’re quick to point out that, while we don’t need to get our houses in order right this minute, it is a possibility that in our children’s children’s children’s lifetimes the possibility of a manmade or natural apocalyptic threat is very real, and suggest that “as our science and technology expand some of the potentially stickiest threats come not from the vast beyond but from within”. So, new, but not so new.