The earth has died many times, and it always comes back looking different. In an exhilarating, surprising exploration of our planet, Craig Childs takes readers on a firsthand journey through apocalypse, touching the truth behind the speculation. Apocalyptic Planet is a combination of science and adventure that reveals the ways in which our world is constantly moving toward its end and how we can change our place within the cycles and episodes that rule it.

In this riveting narrative, Childs makes clear that ours is not a stable planet, that it is prone to sudden, violent natural disasters and extremes of climate. Alternate futures, many not so pretty, are constantly waiting in the wings. Childs refutes the idea of an apocalyptic end to the earth and finds clues to its more inevitable end in some of the most physically challenging places on the globe. He travels from the deserts of Chile, the driest in the world, to the genetic wasteland of central Iowa to the site of the drowned land bridge of the Bering Sea, uncovering the micro-cataclysms that predict the macro: forthcoming ice ages, super-volcanoes, and the conclusion of planetary life cycles. Childs delivers a sensual feast in his descriptions of the natural world and a bounty of unequivocal science that provides us with an unprecedented understanding of our future.

REVIEWS:

Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet:

"An elegant and absorbing account of just how violently the earth can change...this is a very good book to read as we start to watch global warming provide a new shock on this scale."


Publishers Weekly, starred review:

"A mesmerizing and provocative look at our ever-changing, everending planet . . . Childs's lively writing reveals awesome, otherworldy landscapes."


Kirkus:

"Childs aims to experience the apocalypse first hand...Gripping descriptions of deteriorating ecosystems that may soon require less travel and perhaps none at all for readers to experience."


Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe:

"Craig Childs takes an Edward Abbey-esque journey across our rapidly changing globe. Apocalyptic Planet is lyrical, informative, and full of surprises."

Neil Shubin, author of Your Inner Fish:

"It is impossible to read Craig Childs and see the world in the same way again."

Booklist:

"Ruminating on our distant past and present changes, he blends climate science, natural history, literary references, and personal reflections to create an immensely evocative sense of time and place. From Greenlands glaciers to a blistering hot Iowa cornfield (a place Childs characterizes as suffering from genetic exhaustion), he immerses himself in parts of our world that scientists endlessly study but we willfully ignore. He consults great minds, cajoles friends into sharing his adventures (with often hilarious results), and brings his mother along in an attempt to gather clues and form conclusions about the end of the world as we know it. Surprisingly, this is not a work of darkest sorrow but rather an engaging exploration of the land beneath us and the sixth mass extinction that scientists agree is underway."

Publish Date: October 02, 2012
Publisher: Pantheon