Earth Disaster

Desert, forest, or prairies—droughts can happen anywhere. Discover how small shifts in rain amounts can cause big changes to the land. Learn about droughts, what causes them, and how living things adapt to survive.

Deep underwater, something shifts. Ocean water pulls back from the shore, then comes flooding back. Tsunami! These massive waves happen when earthquakes or other actions cause huge amounts of water to shift.

Smoke in the air. Crackling wood. Wildfire! Get to safety, fast. Dry weather, strong winds, and careless actions can all cause forests to burn. Firefighters battle wildfires from the ground and from above. But you can be prepared!

The ground shakes. A road splits apart. Buildings collapse. It’s an earthquake! Discover how movement deep below Earth’s surface can cause such damage. Learn about earthquakes, what causes them, and how to stay safe if one happens.

Global warming...reversed. The energy crisis...over. The greatest problem on Earth...solved. Voltarian Royal Officer of the Fleet Jettero Heller has it all figured out. And he’s devised a daring and ingenious plan to make it all happen...if he lives to see the day. Saving the world is never easy, and for Heller, it turns out to be a tricky - and risky - business.

A leading ecologist argues that if humankind is to survive on a fragile planet, we must understand and obey its iron laws. Over the past century, our species has made unprecedented technological innovations with which we have sought to control nature. From river levees to enormous one-crop...

Natural disasters bedevil our planet, and each appears to be a unique event. Leading geologist Susan W. Kieffer shows how all disasters are connected. In 2011 there were fourteen natural calamities that each destroyed over a billion dollars' worth of property in the United States alone. In 2012 Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast and major earthquakes struck in Italy, the Philippines, Iran, and Afghanistan.

This original audiobook considers one of the most extraordinary scientific and political stories of our time: how in the 1980s a handful of scientists came to believe that mankind faced catastrophe from runaway global warming, and how today this has persuaded politicians to land us with what promises to be the biggest bill in history. Christopher Booker interweaves the science of global warming with that of its growing political consequences, showing how just when the politicians are threatening to change our Western way of life beyond recognition, the scientific evidence behind the global warming theory is being challenged like never before.

American Book Award Winner Finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize Longlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature A NPR, Boston Globe, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, and Library Journal Best Book of the Year At the end of a long, sweltering day, as markets and...

There’s no doubt the world is in trouble. We see tragedy in the streets and violence in the news—but what can we do about it? And how can we find peace amid the chaos? We hear increasingly divisive political debates that spotlight the deep and bitter divisions in our society. We feel the...

Part memoir, part expert analysis, Disasterology is a passionate and personal account of a country in crisis—one unprepared to deal with the disasters of today and those looming in our future. With temperatures rising and the risk of disasters growing, our world is increasingly vulnerable...

Offers a glimpse of the future of vanishing shorelines in America in the age of climate change, where the wealthy will be able to remain the longest while the poor will be forced to leave. Journalist Andrew Lewis chronicles the struggle of his New Jersey hometown to rebuild their ravaged homes...

Volcanoes have fascinated - and terrified - people for ages. They have destroyed cities and ended civilizations. In this book, John Dvorak, the acclaimed author of Earthquake Storms, looks into the early years of volcanology and its "father", Thomas Jaggar. Jaggar was the youngest of five scientists to investigate the explosion of Mount Pelee in Martinique, which leveled the entire city of St. Pierre and killed its entire population in two minutes.

In this one-of-a-kind memoir, Jack Clemons - a former lead engineer in support of NASA - takes listeners behind the scenes and into the inner workings of the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs during their most exciting years. Discover the people, the events, and the risks involved in one of the most important parts of space missions: bringing the astronauts back home to Earth. Clemons joined Project Apollo in 1968, a young engineer inspired by science fiction and electrified by John F. Kennedy's challenge to the nation to put a man on the moon.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Last Dog on Earth by Adrian J Walker, read by David John and Jonathan Aris. Every dog has its day… And for Lineker, a happy go lucky mongrel from Peckham, the day the world ends is his: finally a chance to prove to his owner just how loyal he...

On Shishmaref Island in Alaska, homes are being washed into the sea. In the South Pacific, small island nations face annihilation by encroaching waters. In coastal Louisiana, an area the size of a football field disappears every day. For these communities, sea level rise isn’t a distant, abstract fear: it’s happening now and it’s threatening their way of life. In The Rising Sea, Orrin H. Pilkey and Rob Young warn that many other coastal areas may be close behind.

Carl Safina has been hailed as one of the top 100 conservationists of the 20th century (Audubon Magazine) and A Sea in Flames is his blistering account of the months-long manmade disaster that tormented a region and mesmerized the nation. Traveling across the Gulf to make sense of an ever-changing story and its often-nonsensical twists, Safina expertly deconstructs the series of calamitous misjudgments that caused the Deepwater Horizon blowout, zeroes in on BP’s misstatements, evasions, and denials, reassesses his own reaction to the government’s crisis handling, and reviews the consequences of the leak.

Captain Guyan March had spent his entire professional career aboard Windjammer Barefoot Cruises’ fleet of extravagant tall ships that carry passengers on weeklong fantasy cruises spiced with rum and sun. When he agreed to command the Fantome, Windjammer’s marquee ship, a beautiful 282-foot schooner that “sailed like a pig” in the Gulf of Honduras, he knew that a storm would leave him little space to run. In the southern reaches of the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Mitch whirled to life like a nebula and became Captain March’s worst nightmare.

The earth has died many times, and it always comes back looking different. In an exhilarating, surprising exploration of our planet, Craig Childs takes listeners on a firsthand journey through apocalypse, touching the truth behind the speculation. Apocalyptic Planet is a combination of science and adventure that reveals the ways in which our world is constantly moving toward its end and how we can change our place within the cycles and episodes that rule it.

In late April 1902, Mount Pelee, a volcano on the Caribbean island Martinique, began to wake up. It emitted clouds of ash and smoke for two weeks until violently erupting on May 8. Over 30,000 residents of St. Pierre were killed; they burned to death under rivers of hot lava and suffocated under pounds of hot ash. Only three people managed to survive: a prisoner trapped in a dungeon-like jail cell, a man on the outskirts of town, and a young girl found floating unconscious in a boat days later.