Review of Dangerous Earth: What We Wish We Knew about Volcanos, Hurricanes, Climate Change, Earthquakes, and More by Ellen Prager

The Earth presents dangers that threaten and take lives, damage and destroy built and natural environments, and disrupt economic and social systems. In an effort to summarize what scientists know about these dangers—and what they wish they knew—author Ellen Prager embarks on a conversation with readers that walks them through the science of multiple natural hazards in accessible terms, stories, and powerful images. Although what scientists know is clearly laid out, considerable attention is also paid to what scientists wish they knew about the environment and natural hazards. Understanding and answering these unknowns is critical, Prager argues, to prevent suffering and catastrophe across the globe.

Chapter 1 tackles the science of climate change with an explanation of the scientific consensus that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing and the climate is warming at an unprecedented rate in modern history. The remainder of the chapter details what scientists know about surface and submarine ice and permafrost melting in Antarctica, Greenland, and the Artic and what they do not know about the impact of this melting on global sea level rise and circulation of the ocean. Unknowns are also detailed regarding the implications of a rapidly warming climate for extreme weather events, hypoxic (dead) zones, and ecosystems. Chapter 2 focuses on volcanoes with an explanation of plate tectonics and a description of innovations made in volcano science through multiple modern eruption events. The author notes that this scientific progress has been stymied by a lack of investment in volcano monitoring, leaving many questions remaining about the behavior of volcanoes on which additional data may shed light.

Anchored by descriptions of the 2004 megaquake in the Indian Ocean and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake—and their resultant tsunamis, Chapter 3 details significant recent advances in the science of earthquakes and tsunamis. The chapter also delves into the troubling unknowns that remain, from the occurrence of a series of cascading ruptures with unexpected jumps between faults (the Landers sequence) to the properties of subduction zones that may be associated with earthquake magnitude. Chapter 4 focuses on hurricanes, describing the general atmospheric “recipe” that creates hurricanes and discussing the unknowns that remain such as the role of climate change in storm intensification and the clustering of hurricanes in quick succession. These questions are largely drawn from recent experiences, detailed in the chapter, including the unprecedented 2017 Atlantic hurricane season that saw Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria devastate regions of Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico. Chapter 5 wraps up the book with a discussion of a number of natural hazards including rogue waves, landslides, and sinkholes and even dips into the marine sciences of rip currents and sharks. Each chapter provides high-level explanations of the science related to the hazards of focus and demonstrates the progression of scientific understanding as events occur and new knowledge is gained. The role of data collection and monitoring is also emphasized in helping us know more now than we have ever known about the dangers of the Earth.

As a text and reference, the book has multiple uses. It condenses the science of climate change and natural hazards sets of key findings, providing readings and references for each chapter that may be used to further explore those. Given that the field of natural hazards and disasters is at its core interdisciplinary (Sherman-Morris et al. 2021), the book, in its entirety or pieces, would be a valuable addition to courses on disasters. For students lacking natural science backgrounds, the easily digested text would provide a solid understanding of the state of environmental and climatic science on each type of natural hazard, facilitating more robust cognitive and critical thinking connections between the natural, social, and built environments. The book may also serve as a reference for interdisciplinary collaborations by giving an overview of the natural sciences to social scientists while highlighting the social aspects of natural hazards and disasters to natural scientists and engineers. The structure and discussions in the text may enable a much-needed shared understanding among interdisciplinary research teams of the interplay of humans and natural hazards (Hardy 2021).

In addition to its value as a reference among nonnatural science audiences, the book adeptly demonstrates the dynamic nature of scientific inquiry and knowledge. Prager begins with the observation that science is replete with failure as well as success and controversy. Woven throughout each chapter are stories of scientific progress and missteps. For example, the concept of plate tectonics, critical for understanding the location of volcanoes, was introduced early in the 20th century but dismissed, as Prager puts it, as “simple bonkers, p. 62.” Revisited in the 1960s with new data on continental drift, plate tectonics revolutionized the Earth sciences, and modern volcanic eruptions—Mount St. Helens (1980), Nevado del Ruiz (1985), and Mount Pinatubo (1991)—have been important events in advancing volcano science. When natural hazards become disasters, they often serve as turning points in those stories, allowing scientists to reject past assumptions, and revise and refine thinking and modeling. This aspect of the text serves as an example of how scientists can approach explanations of their work and the general scientific method. Given that stories are powerful instruments to support natural hazard awareness and disaster risk reduction (Hou 2019; Lindahl 2012; Thompson 2021), hazards and disasters scholars should pay careful attention to the storytelling in this book and be inspired to integrate narratives into research products.

Although the book focuses on the scientific knowns and unknowns of natural hazards, Prager concludes that we have sufficient knowledge to assess risks and make wiser decisions accordingly. We know, for example, that climate change is causing glaciers to melt, sea levels to rise, and weather to become more extreme. We know where earthquakes are most likely to happen and who they are most likely to impact. We also have the data and tools, unmatched in history, to monitor volcanoes and hurricanes and reliably give warnings for evacuation. Echoing the axiom that disasters are social, Prager argues the problem is not the hazard nor scientific uncertainties and unknowns but how humans respond. The problem lies in a lack of political will to heed science, lack of investment in disaster preparedness and mitigation, short-sightedness of unsustainable development, civil unrest and conflict over natural resources, and the politicization of science. To respond to this, Prager maintains we need interdisciplinary, multifaceted responses to climate change and scientists who are willing to speak out against those dismissing scientific evidence. This calls us all, as scientists, to be honest brokers (Pielke 2007) in making sense of the dangers of this Earth with policymakers and societal actors—a call that is heard but remains challenging to act on (Andereggen et al. 2012; Rantala et al. 2017).