Natural Disasters?
I grew up in the suburbs, a bubble, protected from most of the world’s calamities. But I still collected guides that would come in good use if the world collapsed: star maps, nature manuals, and National Audubon Society field guides. Essentially, owners manuals for planet Earth.
There’s something comforting about that. In the same way the book on plate tectonics and the supercontinent cycle was: things are supposed to move and change. And while we can’t do much about it, we don’t have to fear it. We can even track it. For example, I recently learned that Orion (an easily identifiable constellation), moves from east to west over the course of a the winter months. Every year. In the same arc. For tens of thousands of years, or so.
So much more comforting than watching the rotating tenants of the local strip mall.
