This review of Bryan Walsh’s new book End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World finds that the book is “a highly readable account of the field of global catastrophic risk as it is currently constituted”. The book specifically covers Earth-asteroid collision, volcano eruption, nuclear war, global warming, disease outbreaks, biotechnology, and various threats from artificial and extraterrestrial intelligence. The review further finds that the book raises two key questions that deserve more attention: 1) what makes people take risks seriously? and 2) what can be done if people are not motivated to pay attention to warnings about risk?
GCRI Executive Director Seth Baum and Director of Communications Robert de Neufville were interviewed for and are mentioned in End Times.
Academic citation:
Seth D. Baum, 2019. Preparing for the unthinkable – Book review: End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World. Science, vol. 364, no. 6459 (September 20), page 1254, DOI 10.1126/science.aay4219.
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Image credit: Hachette Books
