End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World

Journalist Walsh tries to “wake people up... to the reality of existential threats” that include asteroids, artificial intelligence, and more in this well-intentioned but unsatisfying assessment of risk and prevention. Readers craving gloom and doom will feel especially let down, as Walsh doesn’t revel in sensationalistic pessimism. He interviews biologists, climatologists, anthropologists, geologists, astronomers, and even a moral philosopher to grapple with a tough subject: human extinction. He goes into great detail about the ins and outs of tracking near-Earth objects, like the small asteroid that exploded above Chelyabinsk Oblast in 2013, injuring residents, damaging buildings, and catching NASA skywatchers by surprise. He takes the same approach to evaluating “supervolcanoes,” such as Toba in Sumatra and Yellowstone in the United States, describing the “guesswork” involved in predicting immense-scale eruptions. Other potential forces of mass destruction discussed are artificial intelligence and biotechnology, particularly the ability to synthesize DNA; both he calls “dual-use technologies,” which might either benefit humankind or cause mass suffering, even extinction. Though he succeeds in providing an introduction to how these and other megathreats, readers will be disappointed that Walsh’s study offers very few clear answers, and only a vague “existential hope” that solutions can be found. Agent: Todd Shuster, Aevitas Creative. (Sept.)