Graham King:
By University of Manitoba professor Vaclav Smil ("The man who's tutoring Bill Gates"), this is an analysis of what the next 50 years might look like, and what terrible things could happen.
"Catastrophes" means sudden dramatic changes: A large asteroid impact (very unlikely), volcano eruption (also unlikely), or influenza pandemic (almost guaranteed - yikes!).
"Trends" are gradual shifts over time: Aging population in the affluent world, China's rise in power, transition from fossil fuels to other energy sources, and so on.
This is a fascinating and quite technical book. The author comes across as a renaissance man, comfortable in so many different fields, and is ruthless where our knowledge is lacking. He never seems to guess, or advance a hypothesis, he simply says what we know, and largely how unsure we are that we really know that.
Vaclav Smil has a high regard for his reader, using latin names for bacteria and chemical formulas for atmospheric gases. You'll leave this book feeling that you've seen the truth, and the truth is really rather complex, and uncertain. And in flux.
