The proceedings of the 30th International Geological Congress held in Beijing, China in August 1997. These two volumes focuses on geosciences and human survival, environment, natural hazards and global changes. They aim to present a view of contemporary geology.

The proceedings of the 30th International Geological Congress held in Beijing, China in August 1997. These two volumes focuses on geosciences and human survival, environment, natural hazards and global changes. They aim to present a view of contemporary geology.

The proceedings of the 30th International Geological Congress held in Beijing, China in August 1997. These two volumes focuses on geosciences and human survival, environment, natural hazards and global changes. They aim to present a view of contemporary geology.

The International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) was established as a means of raising worldwide public and political awareness of the vast, though frequently under-used, potential the Earth Sciences possess for improving the quality of life of the peoples of the world and safeguarding Earth’s rich and diverse environments. The International Year project was jointly initiated in 2000 by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) and the Earth Science Division of the United Nations Educational, Scienti?c and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). IUGS, which is a Non-Governmental Organisation, and UNESCO, an Inter-Governmental Orga- sation, already shared a long record of productive cooperation in the natural sciences and their application to societal problems, including the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) now in its fourth decade. With its main goals of raising public awareness of, and enhancing research in the Earth sciences on a global scale in both the developed and less-developed countries of the world, two operational programmes were demanded. In 2002 and 2003, the Series Editors together with Dr. Ted Nield and Dr. Henk Schalke (all four being core members of the Management Team at that time) drew up outlines of a Science and an Outreach Programme. In 2005, following the UN proclamation of 2008 as the United Nations International Year of Planet Earth, the “Year” grew into a triennium (2007–2009).

What is the fate of the world as we know it? Tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, pandemics, cosmic radiation, gamma bursts from space, colliding comets, and asteroids—these things used to worry us from time to time, but now they have become the background noise of our culture. Are natural calamities indeed more probable, and more frequent, than they were? Are things getting worse? Are the boundaries between natural and human-caused calamities blurring? Are we part of the problem? If so, what can we do about it? In The End, award-winning writer Marq de Villiers examines these questions at a time when there is an urgent need to understand the perils that confront us, to act in such a way as best we can for the inevitable disasters when they come. We can do nothing about some natural calamities, but about others we can do a great deal. De Villiers helps us understand which is which, and lays out some provocative ideas for mitigating the damage all such calamities can inflict on us and our world. The End is a brilliant and challenging look at what lies ahead, and at what we can do to influence our future.

One of the fundamental goals of earth system science research is to adopt a more holistic view of the earth as a ‘system’ comprising different domains. The Society of Earth Scientists has brought out this multidisciplinary publication to emphasize the need of an integrated approach to understand the Earth system. It focuses on natural disasters and, in particular, on climate change and its effects in Asia and understanding the significance of these developments within the context of the paleo-climatic record. The later sections of the book then focus on other types of natural disasters as well as those induced by human interaction with our environment.