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Could we be leaving our children not only a far hotter world, but a more geologically unstable one too?

In Waking the Giant, Bill McGuire argues that now that human activities are driving climate change as rapidly as anything seen in post-glacial times, the sleeping giant beneath our feet is stirring once again. The close of the last Ice Age saw not only a huge temperature hike but also the Earth’s crust bouncing and bending in response to the melting of the great ice sheets and the filling of the ocean basins — dramatic geophysical events that triggered earthquakes, spawned tsunamis, and provoked a series of eruptions from the world’s volcanoes.

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Bill McGuire is Professor of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London. His books include Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, Surviving Armageddon: Solutions for a Threatened Planet, and Seven Years to Save the Planet.

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No one can escape the hundreds of articles and reports into global climate change: it is one of the most important issues on the political landscape in countries across the world. For this month’s Very Short Introduction column, I put a few questions to Bill McGuire, author of Global Catastrophe: A Very Short Introduction. McGuire is Director of the Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre and has authored or edited over 400 books, papers and articles focusing on volcano instability and monitoring, volcanic hazards, natural hazards and environmental change, climate change and global geophysical events. He has worked on or visited volcanoes all over the world, including Mount Etna, Pinatubo and Ta’al in the Philippines, and Soufriere Hills in Montserrat.

OUP: Over the last few years we have seen an alarming increase in natural disasters, such as the Asian tsunami and subsequent earthquakes in the region. Can this rise be put down simply to climate change, or are there other possible explanations?

BILL McGUIRE: We have indeed been seeing a rise in the numbers of natural disasters, especially since 1990. This does not necessarily mean, however, that there have been more natural hazards. Climate change is already driving up the numbers of extreme weather events, such as storms and floods, and this is clearly having an impact. So far, however, we are not seeing any increase in the number and scale of geological hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. The main reason for more natural disasters in recent years is that there are ever more people living in vulnerable regions, particularly in the coastal zone.

OUP: At the same time as being faced with more and more reports about global warming, and the melting polar ice caps, we also hear about a possible new ice age. How can we have an ice age when the earth is getting warmer?

McGUIRE: Current global warming is happening and is unequivocally due to human activities. There is no new ice age on the horizon, and in fact the next one - which would normally be expected within 10,000 years or so - may be postponed by our warming activities for up to half a million years.

If the gulf stream and associated Atlantic currents shut down in the next few decades, we could see a temporary cooling of the UK, Europe and the eastern US, but this would be far from an ice age, and warming would soon take over once more.

OUP: You say in your book that the human race “came within a hair’s breath of extinction” after a massive volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago. How do we know this, and what saved us then? Could the same thing happen now?

McGUIRE: Studies of mitochondrial DNA reveal evidence of a human population crash around about the time of the Toba super-eruption. This is known because we are so genetically similar that everyone alive today must be descended from a limited gene pool at about this time. It may be that just a few thousand humans survived the effects of the blast on the climate, possibly in tropical regions where the succeeding volcanic winter may have been less intense. This remains, however, highly speculative.

OUP: You suggest that the human race can try to preserve itself by moving into space, therefore potentially outliving Earth. Is the move into space really a realistic proposition?

McGUIRE: The only things hindering the colonisation of space are political will and money. Given time, I expect both obstacles to be overcome, leading to our race eventually reaching the stars. The big question is whether this would be good thing - bearing in mind how we have treated our own planet and those species we share it with? It may also be that the economic and social collapse that dangerous climate change looks increasingly likely to bring will set us back for generations.

OUP: Once people have read Global Catastrophes: A Very Short Introduction, which five books would you point them to next?

McGUIRE: Surviving Armageddon: Solutions for a Threatened Planet (also by me) suggests possible solutions to some of the potential catastrophes addressed in ‘global catastrophes’.

To find out how close we are to the oil running out, with consequent economic mayhem, I recommend The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man by David Strahan

The greatest threat to our race and our planet currently lies in contemporary climate change, so I would direct the reader to: Six Degrees by Mark Lynas and The Rough Guide to Climate Change.

Finally, I would (naturally) recommend my new climate change book Seven Years to Save the Planet due to be published in July (in the UK) by Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

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There are some good children’s book discussion and review podcasts out there. (For those of you who don’t know, a podcast is either an audio or video recording that you can listen to or watch online, or download to your computer or MP3 player for viewing or listening to later. You do not need an iPod to listen to them; you can use the media player that comes with your computer, your own chosen media player, or any MP3 player.)

Some podcasts have a higher quality than others, both in audio quality and in content.

Here are a few podcasts that you might enjoy:

Horn Book Podcasts
Horn Book has monthly podcasts featuring interviews with children’s and teen fiction writers, children’s illustrators, and editors, as well as discussion on reviewing and publishing. The podcasts are intelligent and entertaining. I wish they had an archive, where you could see all past podcasts, but perhaps that will come.

Swimming in Literary Soup
These podcasts highlight picture books and children’s books by topic, and may introduce you to a new book you’d like to read. The audio quality is good and the content is interesting, if you love children’s books. This is one of my favorite children’s book podcast so far, but they haven’t updated their podcasts since May 11, 2007. Hopefully that will change, but meanwhile there are some interesting books to check out through their podcasts.

Fuse #8
Elizabeth at Fuse #8 podcasts about children’s book reviews, book news, and more. Elizabeth has a great voice, is funny, and knows a lot about children’s books. Her podcasts have just started, and it looks like they’ll be several times a month. You can read about her podcasts here or sign up for the rss feed here.

Children’s Book Radio
These podcasts include author interviews with children’s authors and illustrators. Older podcasts include reviews. The beginning of each podcast has a lot of advertising that you have to sit through, that I wish wasn’t there; it takes away from my listening enjoyment. Still, the content can be interesting, the podcasts come out regularly (click on “episodes” on the right panel to view and listen or download) and the audio quality is pretty good. Includes interviews with Jane Yolen, Wendy Orr, Marla Frazee, and more.

Just One More Book
Just One More Book might be the pioneer of kidlit podcasts; they’ve been around for a quite a while. Just One More Book has regular podcasts about “the children’s books we love and why we love ‘em, recorded in our favorite coffee shop.” You can tell they truly love children’s books, and that’s inspiring. They have book reviews, author interviews, and discussions about what works, what doesn’t, and why in particular children’s books. I find the cafe noise a bit distracting, and sometimes it feels like I’m listening in on a conversation instead of a polished show, but they review and discuss fantastic books, and their content is good. You may find books that you didn’t know about otherwise.

Book Bites For Kids
Book Bites for Kids from WritingforChildren.com has frequent interviews with children’s authors on what they write, why they write, how they got started, and more. Each show is 30 minutes. It looks like they started this August.

Sesame Street Podcasts
Okay, this one isn’t entirely book related, but I had to include it (I’m a Sesame Street fan). This week’s Sesame Street video podcast, What’s the Word On The Street, is about newspapers and reading them. It’s entertaining and funny, has skits about newspapers from favorite characters (such as Grover), includes Matt Lauer speaking about his “favorite thing to do with newspapers” and is polished and well put together. It has everything I love about Sesame Street. It also, I think, promotes an interest in reading, even if the focus is on newspapers.

What podcasts do you like to listen to? Do you know of any other children’s or teen book podcasts?