Our Final Hour
Books / Hardcover
Books › Philosophy › Reference
ISBN: 0465068626 / Publisher: Basic Books, March 2003
A world-renowned astrophysicist advances an astonishing and alarming thesis: the odds are no better than 50/50 that our species will survive to the end of the twenty-first century
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A scientist known for unraveling the complexities of the universe, Sir Martin Rees not warns that humankind is potentially the maker of its own demise - and the demise of the cosmos. With clarity and precision, Rees maps out the ways technology could destroy our species and thereby foreclose the potential of a living universe whose evolution has just begun.Rees forecasts that the odds are no better than fifty-fifty that humankind will survive to the end of the twenty-first century. Science is advancing at an exhilarating rate, but with a dark side: Our increasingly interconnected world is vulnerable to new risks, "bio" or "cyber," terror or error. The dangers from twenty-first century technology could be graver and more intractable than the threat of nuclear devastation that we faced for decades. And human-induced pressures on the global environment may engender higher risks than the age-old hazards of earthquakes, eruptions, and asteroid impacts.Rees explores the startling scenarios that science and technology have made possible or even likely. We could be wiped out by lethal "engineered" airborne viruses, or by rogue nano-machines that replicate catastrophically. Experiments that crash together atomic nuclei could start a chain reaction that erodes all atoms of Earth, or could even tear the fabric of space itself. Bioterror or bioerror could kill a million people within twenty years. But as Rees so eloquently reveals, it would be nearly impossible to reduce these risks without encroaching on cherished personal freedoms and the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
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