World Disasters

Dr. Andrew Furey, an orthopedic surgeon, was sitting by the fireplace at his home in St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, watching TV after work, when dreadful images of the aftermath of an earthquake in Haiti burst in on the cosy domestic scene. Human suffering on an epic scale was being documented in real time. Dr. Furey spent a sleepless night, and woke knowing he had to help in some way. In what has been a theme throughout Newfoundland and Labrador's history, he found himself answering the call.

In 1353, Giovanni ​Boccaccio wrote The Decameron: one hundred nested tales told by a group of young men and women passing the time at a villa outside Florence while waiting out the gruesome Black Death, a plague that killed more than 25 million people. Some of the stories are silly, some are bawdy, some are like fables. In March 2020, the editors of The New York Times Magazine worked to create a collection of stories written just as the pandemic first swept the globe.

Can we human beings agree on a set of values which will allow us to confront the numerous threats that we and our planet face? Or will we continue our disagreements, rivalries, and antipathies, even as we collectively approach what, in the not impossible extreme, might be extinction? To answer these questions, A. C. Grayling considers the three most pressing challenges facing the world: climate change, technology, and justice.

Immerse yourself in a gripping new eBook, "Rising from the Dead." This thrilling read takes the world's most popular apocalypse trope - the zombie outbreak - and builds a captivating narrative around survival, resilience, and the reestablishment of socities in a world after the dust has settled. Has the end truly come when the dead start walking? "Understanding the Post-Zombie World," the first chapter, introduces you to the stark new reality and the immediate fallout of this zombie apocalypse. In the subsequent chapters like "The Art of Rebuilding Societies" and "Formulating New Systems of...

Amber Fitch’s life is upended when a sudden power outage plunges her city into chaos, leaving her and her brother, Freddie, cut off from the world. As the darkness spreads, so does the panic, with neighbors turning against each other and the streets becoming a battlefield. Their home destroyed by fire, Amber and Freddie must navigate the lawless city, where every decision could mean life or death.

The development of nuclear weapons by humans with 'Trinity' and their gradual evolution within a decade into megaton-class thermonuclear weapons; capable of decimating entire cities in a matter of minutes with a single explosion; has almost taken mankind onto the verge of a potential nuclear apocalypse & doomsday on multiple occasions so far over the course of the Atomic Age, especially through the bone chilling Cold War years. However, almost all global nuclear powers consistently maintain and still swear by the extremely dangerous & absurd doctrines of ‘nuclear deterrence’, ‘mutual-...

The entertaining style and solid research of the Lives of…. series of biographies have made it a favorite with families and educators for twenty years. This new volume takes readers through the centuries and across the globe, profiling the men and women whose curiosity and courage have led them to discover our world.

Climate change is the biggest existential crisis that humankind has faced. In the last 100 years, we have ruined the carbon cycle using fossil fuels, namely coal, petroleum, and natural gas, to build our civilization, not taking into account the catastrophic impacts climate change can cause. Even though our lives depend on it, most of us don't know about the causes and how we will be able to tackle this existential threat. This book gives you alternative answers on what steps governments, companies, and individuals need to take.

This audiobook attempts to answer as many of those questions as possible through an informal, narrative style. It focuses on the overall experience and the feelings and emotions of the people going through it rather than just on facts and figures. It covers every aspect of the Titanic saga from inception and construction to the recent rediscovery of the ship. It also examines the impact of the disaster on society and culture.

John Valliant's essay about the sinking of the Fantome, a Caribbean pleasure cruiser, during Hurricane Mitch in 1998, and the subsequent lawsuit. The disaster was the Atlantic’s worst sailing accident in over forty years.

With 2018 marking the 100th anniversary of the worst disease outbreak in modern history, the story of the Spanish flu is more relevant today than ever. This dramatic narrative, told through the stories and voices of the people caught in the deadly maelstrom, explores how this vast, global epidemic was intertwined with the horrors of World War I - and how it could happen again. Complete with modern research and firsthand reports by medical professionals and survivors, this audiobook provides captivating insight into a catastrophe that transformed America in the early 20th century.

Entre los escombros del huracan Maria, los puertorriquenos y los "Puertopians" ultra-ricos estan atrapados en una batalla campal sobre como reconstruir la isla. Autora Naomi Klein revela como las fuerzas de las politicas de "shock" y del capitalismo del desastre, buscan minar la vision radical y resiliente de una recuperacion justa. El cien por ciento de las regalias por la venta de este libro iran directamente a JunteGente, un espacio de encuentro entre organizaciones en resistencia al capitalismo del desastre y que luchan por una recuperacion justa y sostenible de Puerto Rico.

Carbon dioxide: this seemingly simple and ubiquitous substance is fundamental to how our planet works. All life is made from CO2, and its behavior on this planet has kept Earth bizarrely habitable for hundreds of millions of years. In its workings lie both the splendor of our world and the potential for life’s destruction. In short, it is the most important substance in history. But why is CO2 as essential to life on Earth as it is capable of destroying it? Award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen reveals carbon dioxide’s fundamental role in the operation and maintenance of our planet

Predicting the future is easy. But which future? The possibilities are endless. The modern world ended in 2051. That was ten years ago, when Tony was eleven years old. Unbearable heat and frequent superstorms have rendered Arkansas unlivable. A refugee from Colorado, Tony is one of only three people left in the camp at Kings River. He should have gone north with the others. Why is he still here? Hannah thought she would live on the Missouri farm where she grew up forever. Now, she knows she must leave. Not because of the raiders. As far as Hannah knows, the raiders have already gone. The ...

The SS Portland was a solid and luxurious ship, and its loss in 1898 in a violent storm with some 200 people aboard was later remembered as “New England’s Titanic.” The Portland was one of New England's largest and most luxurious paddle steamers, and after nine years' solid performance, she had earned a reputation as a safe and dependable vessel. In November 1898, a perfect storm formed off the New England coast. Conditions would produce a blizzard with 100 miles per hour winds and 60-foot waves that pummeled the coast.

From Hiroshima to Chernobyl, Fukushima to the growing legacy of lethal radioactive waste, humanity's struggle to conquer atomic energy is rife with secrecy, deceit, human error, blatant disregard for life, short-sighted politics and fear. Fallout is an eye-opening odyssey through the first eight decades of this struggle and the radioactive landscapes it has left behind. We are, he finds, forever torn between technological hubris and all-too-human terror about what we have created.

Alex was in bad shape. Just this side of dead, lying in a dumpster, but he couldn’t give up. Crawling out of the garbage, the first thing he noticed, beyond the pain, was that Vee was gone. He had only one option - to keep going. Out to the street he walked. All around there was only the otherworldly destruction of burned-out cars, broken windows, and empty streets. Houston had fallen further into chaos, brimming with violence and a population at each other’s throats.

Para finales del siglo XIX, el momento de la rebelión para Cuba había llegado. Luego de tres siglos de dominación española, y dos décadas de influencia norteamericana, el pueblo de la isla unía sus fuerzas en secreto, previendo la forma de alcanzar la libertad. A comienzos del siglo XX, esta historia llegaría a su final.

Cory’s life was hard. A horrific childhood, bad marriage, and a stint in prison set him on the path. His time in organized crime was miserable, but he had no choice. He did pick up a few skills along the way, though, and just in time for the end-of-the-world.

Rife with captivating details of survival in an icy wilderness, this reimagining of the famous 1910 expedition to the South Pole, told in Cherry's voice, is an unforgettable tale of courage and camaraderie.