num_pages: 320
description: An astonishing transformation over the last 20000 years has seen our planet changed from a frigid wasteland into the temperate world within which our civilization has grown and thrived. This dynamic episode in our planet's history right at the close of the 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. In Wakingthe 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. When and if it finally wakes we should all be afraid--very afraid. Could we be leaving our children not only a far hotter world but a more geologically unstable one too?
language: English
title: Waking the Giant: How a Changing Climate Triggers Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Volcanoes
publisher: Oxford University Press