Robert Lighthizer

Unlike national legal systems, there are precious few avenues to address judicial activism at the WTO. You pretty much have to gain consensus to change the agreements, or simply withdraw from the system. The first is nearly impossible, and the second would be - in the view of many - cataclysmic.

American Public Servant

Martha Beck

Ten years ago, I still feared loss enough to abandon myself in order to keep things stable. I'd smile when I was sad, pretend to like people who appalled me. What I now know is that losses aren't cataclysmic if they teach the heart and soul their natural cycle of breaking and healing.

American Author

Mark Zandi

Defaulting on the nation's debt would be cataclysmic. The U.S. Treasury's Aaa rating is the one constant in the world's financial system. When times are bad anywhere on the planet, global investors flock to Treasury bonds because they know they will get their money back.

American Economist

Bill de Blasio

We not only need a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy that prevents the most cataclysmic consequences of global warming, we need real dollars and real planning for coastal protection to combat the consequences that are already inevitable.

American Politician

Travis Bradberry

If you struggle with putting things into perspective, just ask yourself two simple questions: What's the worst thing that could happen as a result of this? Will this matter in five years? Your answers should put a stop to cataclysmic thinking.

James Levine

Great cataclysmic things can go by and neither the orchestra nor the conductor are under the delusion that whether they make this or that gesture is going to be the deciding factor in how it comes out.

American Musician

Tom Brokaw

I had this unusual mix of curiosity, the ability to write in ways people understood, and when I appeared, viewers seemed to trust me to get them through some cataclysmic changes.

American Journalist

John McDonnell

Parties don't lose overnight, there is a gradual erosion of their base and electoral machine, which leads to sometimes cataclysmic defeat.

British Politician

Jim Rohn

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don't fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.

American Businessman

Emmanuel Jal

Sudanese Musician

Used to evoke strong feelings about the severity of an event.

Emotional Intensity

Sometimes exaggerates the impact when used in casual speech.

Often Hyperbolic

Appropriate for describing very large-scale disasters, not minor ones.

Extremes Only

Refers not only to physical events but also to social or political ones.

Beyond Physical

Effect is understood by the context, making the impact clear.

Contextual Clarity

Often used to express personal feelings towards disruptive changes.

Emotional Response

 Earthquakes are sudden, unpredictable disasters that have drowned cities in an instant. Luckily, however, throughout history, the majority of sunken cities were not submerged by a single cataclysmic event, but by a combination of more gradual processes.

Real life sunken cities...

 Our planet's diverse thriving ecosystems may seem like permanent fixtures, but they're actually vulnerable to collapse. Jungles can become deserts, and reefs can become lifeless rocks, even without cataclysmic events, like volcanoes and asteroids.

Why is biodiversity so...

 cataclysmic commons problems, in order to deal with the Type-2a vulnerabilities. Global governance is a term that's definitely way out of fashion right now, but could you make the case that throughout history, the history of humanity

How civilization could...

 we have to gaze upwards at the stars. Gold is extraterrestrial. Instead of arising from the planet's rocky crust, it was actually cooked up in space and is present on Earth because of cataclysmic stellar explosions called supernovae.

Where does gold come...

 that a cataclysmic meteor impact were volcano left few survivors with little competition and plenty of room to grow another says that his countenance drifted apart the climate became more favorable to plant life the resulting

Fossil Record Mystery PIPE...

 The angriest voices had taken the world stage, preaching hatred and tribal division. The most cataclysmic war in history, which would take the lives of 16 million human beings, was only just beginning.

Seven Wonders of the New...

 The cataclysmic continental clash from which it arose made it huge to begin with. Secondly, the mountain lies near the tropics, so the snowline is high, and the glaciers relatively small,

Why is Mount Everest so...

 and some of the world's largest geothermal features emerged. Supervolcanoes have created unparalleled natural beauty, all in the wake of some of the world's most cataclysmic events.

Supervolcanoes 101 PIPE...

 even today we battle against cataclysmic floods hurricanes tsunamis and monsoons submerge our cities atlantis has a chilling residence in our modern world

Ancient Tsunami? PIPE The...

 extinction events most were caused by cataclysmic volcanic eruptions it's not the lava or ash that wiped out life

Cataclysmic