the united states geological survey says a major earthquake will occur in the bay area within the next 30 years. that could be today or it could be tomorrow. it could be a year from now or within 30 years. i bought a map that represents the vulnerable populations in the city -- chinatown, tenderloin, bayview hunters point just to name a few. those are highly vulnerable areas of the city. you can see those highlighted in red. in orange, we have major displacement occurring. one of the most important means of communicating after a disaster will be wireless communications. we will need towers to carry the load and battery backup to power them. the non-profit sector will depend on these communications systems to convey critical communications between nonprofits and faith based organizations who do not have radios that police, fire, and medical personnel have. these organizations are first responders in their own right, reaching out to deliver critical missions to the people who depend on it every day in normal times. these are the most significantly impacted after a major earthquake. putti

it is from the united states geological survey. it basically shows the western side of sand and cisco, basically the format of their is the most vulnerable area of san francisco. means the most susceptible area to look for vacation and everything else. the whole western side of san francisco has historically been low rise. because it can take a good hard hit with an earthquake. remember, the san andreas fault is right off the coast. it is literally only a few hundred feet off the coast. in any event, what we are doing with parkmerced -- if they tried to build large towers, there will be an extreme danger of failure. this is why we are handing out these maps. this could end up in court at some point where there is wrongful death suits and/or manslaughter charges. things come down and people get killed. this whole issue i think is going to be a major issue. this is one that is not going to go away. there is too much money, too much power, too much of many things. building on some of the most prickly vulnerable land in the city and co

that figures in the book is a chap called clarence king who was the first director of the united states geological survey. and he organized an expedition in 1863 called the 40th parallel survey in which he and a bunch of geologists walked in a straight line for six years from just north of san francisco due east to cheyenne essentially seeing what america was made of. i mean, this is part of a much larger book than i'm doing but there will be a chapter on this survey. so clarence king was a white yale-educated geologist, but he also had a fondness for black ladies. and he created an alternative personality for himself james todd who is a light-skinned poolman porter and using that persona metrr and married a bla woman and had five children. so that's the kind of -- you readal the papers, the geologic papers thinking quite honestly i'm just going to do a book about clarence king, and then what? [laughter] >> and that's the kind of thing that seems to happen. so thank you very much indeed. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. [applause] >> i just wanted to say i very much enjoyed the book having sp

united states will beat host. don't worry about it because we're talking geological time, maybe two fifty-five million years when all humankind will be extinct. everyone breathed a sigh of relief except that extremely a angry lady who waved her program and a belligerent way and said even americans will be extinct? yes, they will be. i will become an american in january so i will be extinct as well. if you will have me. the important thing, there is a birth and death. a crucial part is the middle. the 200,000 or so years in which humankind occupies the atlantic and how do you organize that. one day i was flying across the ocean and regarded as most people do, it is an indeterminable plotting distance. look at that map in front of you. you are always just between greenland and newfoundland. when is this mass of water going to be over? to pass the time i had a book of poetry, an anthology by the foreign secretary, all the poems he loved organized according to the seven age of man from shakespeare's as you like it and it gave me the structure for the book because the world is a stage and they all have their experts at t