Worst Cases

Download or read book Worst Cases written by Lee Clarke and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-04-02 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Al Qaeda detonates a nuclear weapon in Times Square during rush hour, wiping out half of Manhattan and killing 500,000 people. A virulent strain of bird flu jumps to humans in Thailand, sweeps across Asia, and claims more than fifty million lives. A single freight car of chlorine derails on the outskirts of Los Angeles, spilling its contents and killing seven million. An asteroid ten kilometers wide slams into the Atlantic Ocean, unleashing a tsunami that renders life on the planet as we know it extinct. We consider the few who live in fear of such scenarios to be alarmist or even paranoid. But Worst Cases shows that such individuals—like Cassandra foreseeing the fall of Troy—are more reasonable and prescient than you might think. In this book, Lee Clarke surveys the full range of possible catastrophes that animate and dominate the popular imagination, from toxic spills and terrorism to plane crashes and pandemics. Along the way, he explores how the ubiquity of worst cases in everyday life has rendered them ordinary and mundane. Fear and dread, Clarke argues, have actually become too rare: only when the public has more substantial information and more credible warnings will it take worst cases as seriously as it should. A timely and necessary look into how we think about the unthinkable, Worst Cases will be must reading for anyone attuned to our current climate of threat and fear.

Download or read book Worst-Case Economics written by Frank Ackerman and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2017-10-23 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Worst-case scenarios are all too real, and all too common. The financial crisis of 2008 was not the first or the last to destroy jobs, homeownership and the savings of millions of people. Hurricanes clobber communities from New York to Bangladesh. How bad will the next catastrophe be, and how soon will it happen? Climate and financial crises are serious events, requiring vigorous responses. Yet public policy is trapped in an obsolete framework, with a simplistic focus on average or likely outcomes rather than dangerous extremes. What would it take to create better analyses of extreme events in climate and finance, and an appropriate policy framework for worst-case risks? ‘Worst-Case Economics: Extreme Events in Climate and Finance’ offers accessible and surprising answers to these crucial questions.

Download or read book Step on a Crack written by James Patterson and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2007-02-12 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As he faces a devastating personal loss, Detective Michael Bennett is about to take on the most sinister challenge of his career: a kidnapping crisis that could destroy the most powerful people in America. The nation has fallen into mourning after the unexpected death of a beloved former First Lady, and the most powerful people in the world gather in New York for her funeral. Then the inconceivable occurs: Billionaires, politicians, and superstars of every kind are suddenly trapped within one man's brilliant and ruthless scenario. Bennett, father of ten, is pulled into the fray. As the danger escalates, Michael is hit with devastating news: After fighting for many years, his wife has succumbed to a terrible disease. As New York descends into chaos, Bennett has lost the great love of his life and faces raising his ten devastated children alone-and rescuing 34 hostages. Day after day, Bennett confronts the most ruthless man he has ever dealt with, a man who kills without hesitation and counters everything the NYPD and FBI throw at him with impunity. As the entire world watches and the tension boils to a searing heat, Bennett has to find a way out-or face responsibility for the greatest debacle in history.

Download or read book In the Courts of the Conquerer written by Walter Echo-Hawk and published by Fulcrum Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-26 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in paperback, an important account of ten Supreme Court cases that changed the fate of Native Americans, providing the contemporary historical/political context of each case, and explaining how the decisions have adversely affected the cultural survival of Native people to this day.

Download or read book A Bad Case of Stripes written by David Shannon and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2016-08-30 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's the first day of school, and Camilla discovers that she is covered from head to toe in stripes, then polka-dots, and any other pattern spoken aloud! With a little help, she learns the secret of accepting her true self, in spite of her peculiar ailment.

Download or read book Suck written by Joey Anuff and published by Hardwired. This book was released on 1997 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collection of articles by various authors.

Download or read book Worst-Case Scenarios written by Cass R. Sunstein and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-05-15 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nuclear bombs in suitcases, anthrax bacilli in ventilators, tsunamis and meteors, avian flu, scorchingly hot temperatures: nightmares that were once the plot of Hollywood movies are now frighteningly real possibilities. How can we steer a path between willful inaction and reckless overreaction? Cass Sunstein explores these and other worst-case scenarios and how we might best prevent them in this vivid, illuminating, and highly original analysis. Singling out the problems of terrorism and climate change, Sunstein explores our susceptibility to two opposite and unhelpful reactions: panic and utter neglect. He shows how private individuals and public officials might best respond to low-probability risks of disaster—emphasizing the need to know what we will lose from precautions as well as from inaction. Finally, he offers an understanding of the uses and limits of cost–benefit analysis, especially when current generations are imposing risks on future generations. Throughout, Sunstein uses climate change as a defining case, because it dramatically illustrates the underlying principles. But he also discusses terrorism, depletion of the ozone layer, genetic modification of food, hurricanes, and worst-case scenarios faced in our ordinary lives. Sunstein concludes that if we can avoid the twin dangers of overreaction and apathy, we will be able to ameliorate if not avoid future catastrophes, retaining our sanity as well as scarce resources that can be devoted to more constructive ends.