Explores how scientific methods are used to predict floods and other natural disasters.

Environmental journalist Joel Bourne looks at the state of the food supply and food security in a world of rapidly expanding population, describing the tremendous challenges confronting humanity in the near future and the scientists and farmers working to meet them in the face of a changing climate.

"What if Atlantis wasnt a myth, but an early precursor to a new age of great flooding? Across the globe, scientists and civilians alike are noticing rapidly rising sea levels, and higher and higher tides pushing more water directly into the places we live, from our most vibrant, historic cities to our last remaining traditional coastal villages. With each crack in the great ice sheets of the Arctic and Antarctica, and each tick upwards of Earths thermometer,...

Thinking about the future has become essential. States, corporations, universities, cities, NGOs and individuals believe they cannot miss the future. But what exactly is the future? It remains a mystery perhaps the greatest mystery of all since futures are unpredictable, uncertain and often unknowable, the outcome of many known and unknown unknowns. The future can rarely be simply extrapolated from the present. In this important new book, John Urry...

Celebrated economic policy maker and political theorist Robert B. Reich argues that the nation's 2008 economic collapse is the result of an increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top--and a middle class that had to go deeply into debt to maintain a decent standard of living. To ensure that prosperity is widely shared, he continues, requires the implementation of a much broader safety net for the middle class financed by higher marginal...