What causes an earthquake? When will another big shock shake Tokyo or Los Angeles? Can people create deserts and eventually wipe out a civilization? Or are deserts and droughts entirely beyond human control? How are ozone layer and greenhouse effect interlinked? Is global warming a force of Nature - or of man? This book, illustrated with photographs and specially commissioned artwork, explains the latest scientific insights into these fiercely debated, life-and-death questions. Our predecessors, such as Newton and Einstein, built science gradually upon their faith in some fundamental simplicity in Nature: what they called Nature's laws. Today our view is one of Chaos and Complexity, as we grapple with the intricacies of how everything - natural and human - interacts. But understanding these interactions has never been more urgent: for we now find ourselves increasingly at the mercy of planet-threatening upheavals unleashed by our own actions. Andrew Robinson, a King's Scholar at Eton, holds degrees from Oxford University and from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His books include "The Shape of the World: The Mapping and Discovery of the Earth" (1990), which accompanied a six-part television series.