WAKING the GIANT Bill McGuire While we transmit more than two
million tweets a day and nearly one hundred trillion emails each
year, we're also emitting record amounts of carbon dioxide
(CO2). Bill McGuire, professor of geophysical and climate
hazards at University College London, expects our continued rise
in greenhouse gas emissions to awaken a slumbering giant: the
Earth's crust. In Waking the Giant: How a Changing Climate
Triggers Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Volcanoes (Oxford University
Press), he explains that when the Earth's crust (or geosphere)
becomes disrupted from rising temperatures and a C[O.sub.2]-rich
atmosphere, natural disasters strike more frequently and with
catastrophic force. Applying a "straightforward presentation of
what we know about how climate and the geosphere interact," the
book links previous warming periods 20,000 to 5,000 years ago
with a greater abundance of tsunamis, landslides, seismic
activity and volcanic eruptions. McGuire urgently warns of the
"tempestuous future of our ow