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COVER STORY:No one has destroyed the world quite as often as Roland Emmerich. The German director's over-egged depictions of global disaster may be short on science, but his depictions of an annihilated planet still have the power to make viewers go green with environmental angst. With the imminent release of the über-destructive 2012, DONALD CLARKEasks Emmerich why he feels the need to keep destroying a perfectly good planet

ONE OF the tinier outrages of the appalling Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 was the visible frustration displayed by rolling-news anchors when confronted with footage of the advancing waves. "Send us in your own film of the disaster," they said plaintively after shrugging their shoulders at the insufficiently terrifying images.