The Heat Will Kill You First

Reviews

“Through stellar reporting, artful storytelling and fascinating scientific explanations, Goodell brings to life heat as a world re-making force. In his skillful hands, the climbing temperature is revealed as an invisible, planetary animator that is already pushing landscapes, bodies, and social systems to their limits – and, unless we change course, it will take humanity to an oven-like climate that will feel more like a war than a home. This searing plea for a better, fairer and cooler future should be read by anyone with skin in the game – which is every single one of us.”—Naomi Klein, author of the New York Times bestselling This Changes Everything "[Goodell] provides an intimate look at the effects of our planet's warming on individual lives...another stark, crucial reminder that we are running out of time to save humankind."—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) "The climate crisis brings no greater threat than the prospect of deadly extreme heat. In The Heat Will Kill You First, Jeff Goodell brings a mix of fantastic storytelling, lucid science communication, and eternal optimism in detailing the profound threat we face with the climate crisis and what we can still do about it.”—Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor, University of Pennsylvania and author of The New Climate War “This is a scary book.  It humanizes global warming by telling amazing stories of individuals already affected by it, making very clear the danger we are putting ourselves in.  We all have a cognitive map in our head that includes a near future, which is sketchier than our map of the present, being made of our hopes and fears.  This book will sharpen that sketch in electrifying ways.  You won’t see the world the same way after reading it.” —Kim Stanley Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of The High Sierra and The Ministry for the Future "If you have ever sweated through a heatwave and wondered how much worse things are going to get as temperatures continue to rise around the planet, then Jeff Goodell's The Heat Will Kill You First is just the book for you. Meticulously researched yet thoroughly readable, this is at once a portrait of a heat-disrupted world and a primer for how to prepare for it."—Amitav Ghosh, bestselling author of The Nutmeg’s Curse and The Great Derangement  “As the planet warms, all our assumptions are going to be upended. Jeff Goodell asks us to imagine the impact on our minds and bodies, our communities and economies. The Heat Will Kill You First is essential reading for anyone who cares about the future.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Sixth Extinction “It is already a new world, hotter than ever before in human history and getting rapidly hotter still. The Heat Will Kill You First is a masterful, bracing, vivid portrait of the future we now know will be shaped, like clay, by that heat—a godlike force, as Goodell writes, governing all life conducted under its profound and brutal reign.” —David Wallace-Wells, author of The New York Times bestselling The Uninhabitable Earth "Once you read this book, you may never see a hot summer day the same way again.  Jeff Goodell gives heat names, faces, stories, and emotions that you will find hard to forget."—Andrea Dutton, MacArthur Fellow and Professor of Geology, University of Wisconsin–Madison “Entertaining and thoroughly researched, Jeff Goodell brings the subject of climate-driven extreme heat to life in his comprehensive look at heat’s substantial impact on humanity’s past, present, and future.”—Former Vice President Al Gore Expand reviews