Several scientists have recently written monographs for popular consumption on the subject of threats to civilization. In addition to the obvious threat of nuclear holocaust that we grew up fearing when we were children during the cold war, the authors address the probabilities of threats that include things like rogue asteroids, earthquakes, solar explosions, alien invasions and, of course, global warming. We’ll use available data to inform what we might conclude about how much we should be worrying about each of the threats that we identify, and consider the extent to which there might be active steps that we might take to mitigate them.

Class Recordings:

Class 1 - Feb. 2 

Class 2 - Feb 9

Class 3 - Feb 16

Class 4 - February 23

Class 5 - March 2

Class 6 - March 9