Spectator Books

In this week’s books podcast, I’m joined by the philosopher Toby Ord to talk about the cheering subject of planetary catastrophe. In his book The Precipice, new in paperback, Toby argues that we’re at a crucial point in human history - and that if we don’t start thinking seriously about extinction risks our species may not make it through the next few centuries. Asteroids, supervolcanoes, nuclear immolation, killer AI, engineered pandemics... Toby weighs up the risks of each, and tells us why we should care.