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.

The authors of the phenomenally best-selling Worst-Case Scenario Survival series have taught millions to prepare for the worst—but how can readers be sure they're really ready? The Worst-Case Scenario Book of Survival Questions collects hundreds of survival dilemmas and questions designed to test true survival skill and daring. Fifty percent longer than the handbooks, this challenging, interactive, and informative book is packed with survival trivia, expert tips, adventurous situations, and illustrations. Your car is careening toward a 20-foot drop into a river: do you leap from the car immediately, or wait to swim free once it begins to sink? Is it worse to be lost in the jungle during the day or in the desert at night? If you had to perform an emergency tracheotomy, where would you make the incision? In hundreds of multiple-choice quizzes, story problems, and questions, The Worst-Case Scenario Book of Survival Questions provides need-to-know answers to life's unexpected turns for the worst. Also included is a Worst-Case Scenario Aptitude Test (WCSAT), which can be scored at home to ensure optimum readiness. Don't wait until it's too late!

Based on the best-selling WORST-CASE SCENARIO Survival Handbook, with more than six million copies in print, this handy pocket-size version prepares you for life's unexpected perils. Would you know what to do if the worst actually happened? How would you survive an earthquake? Would you know what to do if you had to deliver a baby in a taxicab? Step-by-step survival instructions for these scenarios and many more are provided in The WORST-CASE SCENARIO Little Book for Survival: * How to Identify a Mail Bomb * How to Survive in the Line of Fire * How to Fend Off an Alligator Carry this pocket-size volume with you at all times, because you just never know when you'll need it. Published under license from Chronicle Books, LLC. Worst-Case Scenario and The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook are trademarks of Quirk Productions, Inc. The little books are based on the books The WORST-CASE SCENARIO Survival Handbook, 1999 by Quirk Productions, Inc., and The WORST-CASE SCENARIO Survival Handbook: Dating and Sex, 2001 by Quirk Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. First published by Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco, California, USA.

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.

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.

DOES LOSING EVERYTHING CHANGE YOU FOR THE BETTER? Most people long to buy a home, own a new car, get a great job, live in a nice community. Michael Levitt had all of those things, and lost them all in an instant. Through a challenging journey, Michael learned how to rise above the struggles and renew his focus on what really matters.

Join one of the youngest crews ever to sail around the world in this fourth installment of the Worst-Case Scenario Ultimate Adventure Novel series! Faced with fearsome dangers and difficult decisions, your choices will determine your fate on the deadly seas. Will you survive tropical storms, high winds, navigation crises, and sharks? Or will you be forced to return home early? Only the reader can decide how to survive. There are 24 endings to this adventure, but just ONE will lead to the ultimate success! With eye-catching comic book style illustrations and real-life facts about survival on the high seas, young readers can choose how to survive and jump to the next section in this interactive ebook.