The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorching Planet

For a long time, the threat of climate change seemed to be something in the future, and then more recently it appeared to be the near future. Now we realize that the effects of climate change are upon us. Jeff Goodell’s The Heat Will Kill You First addresses those effects head on. The term “climate change” can be a bit abstract, which is why it replaced “global warming” a few years ago. At the time, global warming seemed too alarming to some. But Earth’s climate is changing precisely because humans are warming our planet by excess discharge of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The Heat Will Kill You First clearly describes what that warming is doing to humans and environments.

The book begins with a summary of the heat dome that settled over North America’s Pacific Northwest in the summer of 2021. For days, people suffered under temperatures above 100 degrees F. Because the region is known for its temperate summer climate, and often as a refuge from heat elsewhere, few buildings have air conditioning. At least 1,000 people died from the heat during those three days. Since 2020, heat waves have also hit other parts of the world, like Mecca and China. Such events will occur now with increasing frequency. For 10,000 years, species on our planet have lived in their respective "Goldilocks Zones" (Goodell’s term), that is, environments that are usually "just right." As temperatures rise around the globe, organisms die from temperatures to which they are unsuited.

Goodell moves to describe, in often gruesome detail, how heat kills us, noting that in the United States people often think that extreme cold is more dangerous. In reality, more people die of heat than die by freezing. Like all other organisms, human bodies are designed to manage heat in particular ways. As we metabolize food and exercise, our bodies generate heat. If we get too hot, our bodies start to sweat, and the water on our skin evaporates, cooling the surface, and thereby cooling the blood coursing through our veins and capillaries. If the air around our bodies is too hot, and if we’re generating too much heat to be cooled in our surroundings, our body temperature rises to such a point that organ functioning is at risk. Numerous strategies can be pursued to avoid the danger (resting, finding shade, drinking cold water, taking a cold shower), but if the temperature imbalance continues, the body will move toward organ failure and death. Goodell narrates the deaths of several people who unexpectedly died from the heat through avoidable circumstances. Having attended to the human body, Goodell then describes the strategies other species have evolved to manage the heat in their bodies.

With those introductory understandings, Goodell explores various facets of a warming planet, including heat islands in cities that make life for poor people more harrowing than for well-to-do people in leafy neighborhoods, warming oceans that kill coral reefs (the book was published before the hot ocean water around Florida in the summer of 2023 killed the giant coral reef off its coast), melting ice caps, and the expansion of warm climates that support deadly disease vectors like mosquitos. As temperatures rise, species will want to move north (or south, on the other side of the Equator) or move to higher elevations to survive, but barriers imposed by humans, like highways or national borders, can prevent some species from moving. Other organisms, like trees, cannot move as fast as the Earth is warming. Nearly all these ecological excursions are narrated through the perspectives of people who are experiencing them or studying them. One such is the story of a photographer who was sent on assignment in 2021 by The Telegraph (a UK-based newspaper) to photograph people living in Jacobabad, Pakistan, one of the hottest places on the planet inhabited by humans. (See her photos at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/hotter-human-body-can-handle-pakistan-city-broils-worlds-highest/.)

Goodell is unflinching in describing how dire the situation has become and how much worse it will become. But his book is also hopeful. His three years of travels researching the book were often dark because of what he learned, but the experience was “also endlessly inspiring because I meet so many people who are fighting for the future and reimagining everything about how we live on this planet.” (p 316-317) Researching the book raised many questions for him that he can’t answer, but he is grateful that he now “think[s] differently about the other living things who share the burden of heat with us.” For Goodell, “the big surprise in writing this book has been discovering not only how easily and quickly heat can kill you, but what a powerful reminder it is of how deeply connected we are to one another and all living things.” (p 317)