Waking the Giant
How a Changing Climate Triggers Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Volcanoes
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Waking the Giant
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Narrated by:
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George Orlando
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By:
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Bill McGuire
About this listen
An astonishing transformation over the last 20,000 years has seen our planet changed from a frigid wasteland into the temperate world within which our civilization has grown and thrived. This dynamic episode in our planet's history, right at the close of the Ice Age, saw not only a huge temperature hike but also the Earth's crust bouncing and bending in response to the melting of the great ice sheets and the filling of the ocean basins - dramatic geophysical events that triggered earthquakes, spawned tsunamis, and provoked a series of eruptions from the world's volcanoes. In Waking the Giant, Bill McGuire argues that now that human activities are driving climate change as rapidly as anything seen in post-glacial times, the sleeping giant beneath our feet is stirring once again. When and if it finally wakes, we should all be afraid - very afraid. Could we be leaving our children not only a far hotter world, but a more geologically unstable one too?
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Obscurity to Enlightenment - A Mystery Revealed
- By Dipam on 03-18-21
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Climate Change
- What Everyone Needs to Know
- By: Joseph Romm
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
From Joseph Romm, Chief Science Advisor for National Geographic's Years of Living Dangerously series and one of Rolling Stone's "100 people who are changing America," Climate Change offers user-friendly, scientifically rigorous answers to the most difficult (and commonly politicized) questions surrounding what climatologist Lonnie Thompson has deemed "a clear and present danger to civilization."
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1 out of 5 stars
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Religious not scientific claims and preachings
- By Jeanne Renzo on 09-19-19
By: Joseph Romm
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A Most Improbable Journey
- A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves
- By: Walter Alvarez
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
Big History, the field that studies the entire known past of our universe to give context to human existence, has so far been the domain of historians. Geologist Walter Alvarez - best known for his Impact Theory explaining dinosaur extinction - makes a compelling case for a new, science-first approach to Big History.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Learned so much
- By Niki on 12-09-18
By: Walter Alvarez
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When Humans Nearly Vanished
- The Catastrophic Explosion of the Toba Volcano
- By: Donald R. Prothero
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 108
Some 73,000 years ago, the Mount Toba supervolcano in toda's Indonesia erupted, releasing the energy of a million tons of explosives. So much ash and debris was injected into the stratosphere that it partially blocked the sun's radiation and caused global temperatures to drop for a decade. In this book, Donald R. Prothero presents the controversial argument that the Toba catastrophe nearly wiped out the human race, leaving only about a thousand to ten thousand breeding pairs of humans worldwide.
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1 out of 5 stars
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A very special book
- By Scott Fitzsimmons on 02-02-19
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The Story of the Earth in 25 Rocks
- Tales of Important Geological Puzzles and the People Who Solved Them
- By: Donald R. Prothero
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 144
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 124
The Story of the Earth in 25 Rocks tells the fascinating stories behind the discoveries that shook the foundations of geology. In 25 chapters, Donald R. Prothero recounts the scientific detective work that shaped our understanding of geology, from the unearthing of exemplary specimens to tectonic shifts in how we view the inner workings of our planet.
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3 out of 5 stars
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More about scientists than science
- By Aunt Vee on 06-14-20
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First Peoples in a New World
- Colonizing Ice Age America
- By: David J. Meltzer
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 11 hrs
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 179
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 152
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 151
More than 12,000 years ago, in one of the greatest triumphs of prehistory, humans colonized North America, a continent that was then truly a new world. Just when and how they did so has been one of the most perplexing and controversial questions in archaeology.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Last Gasp of American Anthropological Orthodoxy
- By Thomas66 on 01-05-17
By: David J. Meltzer
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Overheated
- How Climate Change Will Cause Floods, Famine, War, and Disease
- By: Andrew T. Guzman
- Narrated by: Fleet Cooper
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Deniers of climate change sometimes quip that claims about global warming are more about political science than climate science. They are wrong on the science, but may be right with respect to its political implications. A hotter world, writes Andrew Guzman, will bring unprecedented migrations, famine, war, and disease. It will be a social and political disaster of the first order.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A must read!
- By Ted on 03-22-15
By: Andrew T. Guzman
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Earth
- An Intimate History
- By: Richard Fortey
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 18 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
Beginning with Mt. Vesuvius, whose eruption in Roman times helped spark the science of geology, and ending in a lab in the West of England where mathematical models and lab experiments replace direct observation, Richard Fortey tells us what the present says about ancient geologic processes. He shows how plate tectonics came to rule the geophysical landscape and how the evidence is written in the hills and in the stones. And in the process, he takes us on a wonderful journey around the globe to visit some of the most fascinating and intriguing spots on the planet.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Random Geology Verbose History Jumbled Tours
- By Herbert S. on 12-10-21
By: Richard Fortey
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Origins
- How Earth's History Shaped Human History
- By: Lewis Dartnell
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 606
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 536
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 532
When we talk about human history, we often focus on great leaders, population forces, and decisive wars. But how has the earth itself determined our destiny? Our planet wobbles, driving changes in climate that forced the transition from nomadism to farming. Mountainous terrain led to the development of democracy in Greece. Atmospheric circulation patterns later on shaped the progression of global exploration, colonization, and trade. Even today, voting behavior in the southeast United States ultimately follows the underlying pattern of 75 million-year-old sediments from an ancient sea.
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5 out of 5 stars
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GREAT Book with a Narrator Who's Falling Asleep
- By aaron on 08-02-20
By: Lewis Dartnell
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Dark Winter
- How the Sun Is Causing a 30-Year Cold Spell
- By: John L. Casey
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 95
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
Climate change has been a perplexing problem for years. Casey's research into the Sun's activity, which began almost a decade ago, resulted in discovery of a solar cycle that is now reversing from its global warming phase to that of dangerous global cooling for the next 30 years or more. This new cold climate will dramatically impact the world's citizens.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Global Warming Is A Hoax
- By Catamount on 11-20-17
By: John L. Casey
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Catching Stardust
- Comets, Asteroids and the Birth of the Solar System
- By: Natalie Starkey
- Narrated by: Alison Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 21
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 20
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 20
Icy, rocky, sometimes dusty, always mysterious – comets and asteroids are among the Solar System's very oldest inhabitants, formed within a swirling cloud of gas and dust in the area of space that eventually hosted the Sun and its planets. Locked within each of these extra-terrestrial objects is the 4.6-billion-year wisdom of Solar System events, and by studying them at close quarters using spacecraft we can coerce them into revealing their closely-guarded secrets. This offers us the chance to answer some fundamental questions about our planet and its inhabitants.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A home run in space!
- By Rick B on 07-23-22
By: Natalie Starkey
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Across Atlantic Ice
- The Origin of America's Clovis Culture
- By: Bruce A. Bruce A. Bradley, Denis J. Stanford
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 113
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Story4 out of 5 stars 114
Who were the first humans to inhabit North America? According to the now familiar story, mammal hunters entered the continent some 12,000 years ago via a land bridge that spanned the Bering Sea. The presence of these early New World people was established by distinctive stone tools belonging to the Clovis culture. But are the Clovis tools Asian in origin? Drawing from original archaeological analysis, paleoclimatic research, and genetic studies, noted archaeologists Dennis J. Stanford and Bruce A. Bradley challenge the old narrative.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Ice Cold story
- By S. Wells on 06-17-12
By: Bruce A. Bruce A. Bradley, and others
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The End of Ice
- Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption
- By: Dahr Jamail
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 408
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 362
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 362
After nearly a decade overseas as a war reporter, the acclaimed journalist Dahr Jamail returned to America to renew his passion for mountaineering, only to find that the slopes he had once climbed have been irrevocably changed by climate disruption. In response, Jamail embarks on a journey to the geographical front lines of this crisis - from Alaska to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, via the Amazon rainforest - in order to discover the consequences to nature and to humans of the loss of ice.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Dealing with the Ultimate Climate Change Question
- By red_dog on 02-03-19
By: Dahr Jamail
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Don't Know Much About Geography: Revised and Updated Edition
- Everything You Need to Know About the World But Never Learned, Revised and Updated
- By: Kenneth C. Davis
- Narrated by: Kenneth C. Davis, Joe Ochman, Mark Bramhall, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 83
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Story4 out of 5 stars 67
Kenneth C. Davis, author of Don't Know Much About® History, Don't Know Much About the Civil War and Don't Know Much About the Bible, turns his inimitable wit and wide-ranging knowledge to the subject of geography, and proves once and for all that there is a lot more to it than labeling countries on a map. From often amusing perceptions people have had through the ages about the world and the universe to the changing map of today, Davis shows how geography is really a great crossroad of many fields: biology, meteorology, astronomy, history, economics, and even politics.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Errors
- By The Product Owner on 08-29-15
By: Kenneth C. Davis
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18 Miles
- The Epic Drama of Our Atmosphere and Its Weather
- By: Christopher Dewdney
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
We live at the bottom of an ocean of air - 5,200 million million tons, to be exact. It sounds like a lot, but Earth’s atmosphere is smeared onto its surface in an alarmingly thin layer - 99 percent contained within 18 miles. Yet, within this fragile margin lies a magnificent realm - at once gorgeous, terrifying, capricious, and elusive. With his keen eye for identifying and uniting seemingly unrelated events, Chris Dewdney reveals to us the invisible rivers in the sky that affect how our weather works and the structure of clouds and storms and seasons, the rollercoaster of climate.
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1 out of 5 stars
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10% science, 90% other stuff
- By Daniel W. Fox, Jr. on 10-09-20
What listeners say about Waking the Giant
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Craig
- 06-10-13
Waking Up
What made the experience of listening to Waking the Giant the most enjoyable?
The fundamental concept of ice melting leading to seismic activity is newish to me. I enjoyed the sober and restrained tone of Bill McGuire's discussion of this and other concepts. McGuire's illustration of concepts was just wonderful - mindblowing you could say to non-geologists.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Greenland. I'm concerned whether Greenland manages to lose weight.
What about George Orlando’s performance did you like?
Clarity. His voice has a pleasant warmth, and was able maintain an even tone throughout.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No. However I have purchased the ebook to read it separately again.
I am frustrated a bit sometimes identifying exactly where I am in an ebook, and an audiobook, when I want to re-read a chapter (relevant in a science book).
Any additional comments?
The Guardian newspaper environmental writer Fred Pearce rates this book highly. That is a powerful endorsement.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- John
- 11-03-22
Truly scary.
After reading several climate books by major authors, I got the distinct impression that they were not telling all because of the fear of being labeled an alarmist. This book tells us of what has happened in the past and it is truly worrisome.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- F. Scott Humphrey
- 03-11-22
a cacophony of mispronunciations
This is an amazing collection of interesting scientific facts and opinions. But I have never heard a larger collection of mispronounced proper nouns in my life. At first I thought it was me, and maybe I've always missed out on the academic/intellectual pronunciation of certain words. But this reader absolutely slaughters the pronunciation of everything from epocs to the names of Hawaiian volcanoes. Most of the time the gross mispronunciations are just comical, but occasionally one must stop and rewind the book and listen again just to figure out what the heck the reader is talking about.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Rock lady
- 02-02-18
Just couldn't listen anymore
This is an INCREDIBLE story, but the narrator really needed to have been mentored by someone more geologically savvy. The pronunciations and grammatical errors were a bit much. I ordered the actual book so I could finish it.
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1 person found this helpful