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The Heat Will Kill You First
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The Heat Will Kill You First

Life and Death on a Scorched Planet

Jeff Goodell
Little, Brown US, 2023
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Editorial Rating

10

Qualities

  • Scientific
  • Concrete Examples
  • Eloquent

Recommendation

Climate researcher Jeff Goodell describes the accelerating impacts of global warming with real-life stories illustrating scientific facts. Drawing from his travels, studies, and relationships, and writing with unusual skill, he warns that all living things will seek escape from the escalating heat, relentless storms, drought, and rising seas. Adaptation won’t be adequate for hundreds of millions of Earth’s inhabitants, including humans. Goodell also notes that increasing heat exposes global injustice and instability. Rich people install air conditioners or move, while the poor suffer. His conclusion: The best way to blunt these dire outcomes is to stop burning fossil fuels.

Summary

Heat, an invisible but deadly force, stalks Earth’s living things at escalating levels.

In 2021, Pacific Northwest residents suffered an extreme heat wave produced by a suffocating heat dome. In 24 hours, Portland’s temperature jumped from 76oF to 114oF. Mountain ice melts brought swirling floods and mudslides so intense that satellites could see their “gray plumes.” Salmon struggled as if they were “breathing with a plastic bag over their heads.” Baby hawks abandoned over-heated nests, berries desiccated on the stalk, and broadleaf trees withered and died. Power companies struggled to keep up with unprecedented demands. The human death toll after 72 hours was estimated at 1,000. 

Most people see global warming as a slow, incremental process, but the Earth is quickly heating because of fossil fuel emissions. The planet is more than halfway to the 3.6°C temperature increase scientists recognize as a tipping point. Climate impacts such as drought, fires, and sea level rise are “second-order” effects. The primary planetary crisis is relentless heat, resulting in coastal flooding, dried out plants ...

About the Author

Jeff Goodell is also the author of seven other books, including The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World. He covered climate change for more than two decades at Rolling Stone and other publications. He is a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow.

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