Van Wyck (communication, Concordia U., Montreal, Quebec) uses the example of one specific government nuclear waste burial program the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico to search for a modern new way of thinking about ecological threats. Coverage includes an overview of several basic points what waste is, what nuclear wastes are, the problems they pose, natural disasters versus technological disasters, and why the government is hiding waste in the New Mexican desert; a concise assessment of the past, present, and future of the WIPP; and discussion of some of the implications of ecological and nuclear threats, including the WIPP as a reflection of cultural anxiety, risk and the pathologies of threat, trauma, and a philosophy of threat based not on the possible but on the virtual. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)