The Heat Will Kill You First

Life and Death on a Scorched Planet

De: Jeff Goodell

Narrado por: L.J. Ganser

New York Times best-selling journalist Jeff Goodell presents a "masterful, bracing" (David Wallace-Wells) examination of the impact that temperature rise will have on our lives and on our planet, offering a vital new perspective on where we are headed, how we can prepare, and what is at stake if we fail to act.​

“When heat comes, it’s invisible. It doesn’t bend tree branches or blow hair across your face to let you know it’s arrived…. The sun feels like the barrel of a gun pointed at you.”

The world is waking up to a new reality: wildfires are now seasonal in California, the Northeast is getting less and less snow each winter, and the ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctica are melting fast. Heat is the first order threat that drives all other impacts of the climate crisis. And as the temperature rises, it is revealing fault lines in our governments, our politics, our economy, and our values. The basic science is not complicated: Stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, and the global temperature will stop rising tomorrow. Stop burning fossil fuels in 50 years, and the temperature will keep rising for 50 years, making parts of our planet virtually uninhabitable. It’s up to us. The hotter it gets, the deeper and wider our fault lines will open.

The Heat Will Kill You First is about the extreme ways in which our planet is already changing. It is about why spring is coming a few weeks earlier and fall is coming a few weeks later and the impact that will have on everything from our food supply to disease outbreaks. It is about what will happen to our lives and our communities when typical summer days in Chicago or Boston go from 90° F to 110°F. A heatwave, Goodell explains, is a predatory event— one that culls out the most vulnerable people. But that is changing. As heatwaves become more intense and more common, they will become more democratic.

As an award-winning journalist who has been at the forefront of environmental journalism for decades, Goodell’s new book may be his most provocative yet, explaining how extreme heat will dramatically change the world as we know it. Masterfully reported, mixing the latest scientific insight with on-the-ground storytelling, Jeff Goodell tackles the big questions and uncovers how extreme heat is a force beyond anything we have reckoned with before.

©2023 Jeff Goodell (P)2023 Little, Brown & Company

A Real Eye Opener

A careful reckoning of our future-from melting ice flooding the coast lines to increasing numbers of heat related deaths.
The planet is in real distress as we dawdle.

Great presentation of compelling information.

Clear, compelling, full of important information. Great reading. Accessible to wide audience but not overly simplified.

Goodell is now my favorite nonfiction author

Jeff Goodell's "The Water Will Come" nonfiction book about sea level rise sparked an idea for my disaster novel "Ice Crash: Antarctica." With this second work on climate change, Goodell has secured himself as my favorite nonfiction author. The book isn't all doom and gloom. It ends on a high note. What CAN we do to stop this overheated future?

Informative

I found this book engrossing and opened my eyes to aspects of climate change I hadn’t considered

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an amazing, but borrowing read about climate change. a must read/listen for everyone as we run head first into a climate calamity

Learn before you burn

Excellent research and week told relatable life stories. There is still hope to a better no-polluted world.

Super interesting

We live in scary times. I enjoyed this book though at times it was tedious.

The Heat will intrigue you

Exceptional story told. Truly does explain the impending heat crisis and how we got here. A must read!

Important information, well researched

I'm still thinking about this timely book on a very serious subject. Well researched and compelling. Moves along. Never lost interest. The narrator was excellent.

A Must Read

This book was fascinating. It hooked me right away. That isn't why you need to read it, You need to read it because it is the story of your life and future on this planet. This book takes climate change away from charts and graphs. Goodell narrates the human cost of this change in a way that is both engrossing and horrifying. It is difficult to put it down once begun. If you can finish without reexamining your responsibilities as a citizen of the Earth, I question your attention. Read it - this week.