The Heat Will Kill You First summary

Name: The Heat Will Kill You First
Rating: 3.9 (125 reviews)
Author: Jeff Goodell

Jeff Goodell

Life and Death on a Scorched Planet

3.9 (125 ratings)

20 mins

Brief summary

The Heat Will Kill You First by Jeff Goodell is a book that explores the devastating impacts of climate change. It delves into the scientific evidence, personal stories, and urgent need for collective action to combat this global crisis.

Topics

Crises & Scandals Change & Evolution Climate Change Natural Sciences

Table of Contents

The Heat Will Kill You First
Summary of 5 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 5

What’s in it for me? A real understanding of how the heat from climate change will kill us.

In the summer of 2021, the Pacific Northwest experienced a severe heatwave that caused widespread panic and destruction. Temperatures reached record levels, including 114°F in Portland. A heat wave, born over the Pacific, drifted inland and grew in intensity, creating a heat dome. Ice was the first casualty, and as snowpacks melted, glaciers released torrents of silty water that flooded towns.

Salmon, sensing the water temperature change, began migrating early. But then they struggled to breathe as the rivers warmed. Vegetation was next – unable to escape the heat, it struggled to retain water. Bighorn sheep moved to higher ground, doves panted like dogs, baby hawks jumped to their deaths in an attempt to fly to escape overheating with their siblings.

In 72 hours, the official human death toll was 1,000 – but the actual number is likely higher, especially among the elderly, poor, and medically vulnerable. The town of Lytton, British Columbia was incinerated when temperatures there hit 121°F. Over a billion sea creatures met their deaths over the three days.

Such a heatwave in the Pacific Northwest had been thought to be as likely as snow in the Sahara. But then it happened. Right now, scientists can’t predict where or when such heat will appear next, but they do know that occurrences such as this are a direct result of human activities.

As fossil-fuel burning increases levels of heat-trapping gasses like CO2, the planet warms. Heat is the prime mover of climate chaos, melting ice, drying soil, and even reviving ancient bacteria from thawed permafrost.

Humans might be able to engineer their way out of anything – cities like Los Angeles and Paris are already working to deflect sunlight and have more shade trees. But there are limits to adaptation for Earth’s population of nearly 8 billion. Parts of the Middle East and South Asia are already too hot for humans in summer. And in 2022, 63 percent of China’s population suffered under an extreme two-month heatwave.

Although wealthier individuals might be able to afford protective measures, poverty equates to vulnerability. Heather McTeer Toney, former mayor of Greenville, Mississippi, summed this up neatly: “We’re all in the storm, but we’re not in the same boat.”

And if all that isn’t enough for you to take the climate crisis seriously, just consider these facts: From an economic point of view, researchers estimate heatwaves have cost the global economy $16 trillion since the 1990s. In 2019 alone, extreme heat killed over 489,000 people globally, exceeding deaths from all other natural disasters combined. And heat exposure raises risks of disease, cognitive decline, violence, and suicide.

In the rest of this Blink to The Heat Will Kill You First by Jeff Goodell, we’ll look at how life, and humans in particular, have adapted to climate change, how and why we might see mass migration, and why urgent action is required to curb emissions and prevent the deadliest consequences as temperatures continue rising.

Temperature has shaped human evolution

Early life emerged on Earth around volcanic vents, when the planet was still a hot, molten mass. These primitive organisms were ectotherms, relying on external heat sources to regulate body temperature. Around 260 million years ago, endothermy evolved in animals like mammals and birds, enabling self-generated internal heat. This innovation allowed for faster metabolisms, quicker reaction times, and higher activity levels.

As our human ancestors ventured onto the expanding African savannas, managing heat became crucial. Bipedal walking may have enabled better heat dissipation through airflow. Regulating temperature grew more challenging as larger brains – which needed more cooling – evolved in hominins. Around this time, humans also developed a novel cooling mechanism – sweat.

Humans possess both apocrine and eccrine sweat glands. But eccrine glands proved most effective, secreting water-based liquid that lowers skin temperature through evaporation. To make this mechanism more effective, early humans also lost body hair, leaving, mainly, head hair to act as a sunshade for the brain. Sweating gave our ancestors an advantage when chasing prey during the hottest parts of the day when other animals were forced to rest. Thanks to sweat, early humans became superb endurance hunters with long legs and robust muscles.

Other species have their own tactics. For instance, silver Saharan ants scavenge when it’s too hot for their predators but not so hot that they’ll fry in the desert heat; the camel’s hump not only acts as shade and insulation for its internal organs but also to store fat which it uses in times of food scarcity; and savanna chimps rest between five and seven hours during the hottest parts of the day.

All organisms face challenges in a changing environment. Heat has been a powerful evolutionary force that has shaped biology over countless millennia. Yet the rules are shifting quickly, testing the resilience of long-held survival strategies. Humans evolved for a moderate climate, not the extreme heat we now face from climate change. Our adaptive strategies lag behind the pace of modern warming. How we choose to manage heat today will affect the evolutionary road ahead.

But before we look at other effects caused by climate change, in the next section we offer some potentially life-saving advice.

This information might just save your life

Just by being alive, your body generates heat. Basically, it’s a heat machine. But if you get hot too fast, you’re in trouble. And it doesn’t matter whether that heat is self-generated or comes from outside your body.

Ideally, your body maintains an internal temperature of 98°F. When it’s cold, blood flows to your organs to keep them warm. When it’s hot, blood flow is directed to the skin to cool it when you sweat. That mechanism is inhibited when it’s humid as it’s more difficult for you to sweat and consequently more difficult for you to dissipate heat. Get too hot too quickly, and you can easily develop hyperthermia and even heatstroke.

Urban heat and heat migration

In Phoenix, Arizona and other modern cities, concrete, steel, and asphalt trap the heat. In what is known as the urban heat island effect, urban areas are hotter than surrounding rural ones – sometimes by as much as 20 degrees at night. This effect can actually have a greater impact locally than climate change.

Maricopa County, Arizona had 339 heat-related deaths in 2021. Okay, compared with the 70,000+ who died in a short heat wave in Europe in 2003, that doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s three times as many as one decade earlier.

Climate change fuels the spread of disease

In 2020, Jennifer Jones of Tavernier, Florida was bitten by the mosquito Aedes aegypti which transmits diseases like yellow fever and dengue. It likely sensed Jones's body heat and breath from 30 feet away before biting her. She contracted dengue fever. While the Florida Keys was in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, it turned out it was also experiencing a dengue outbreak.

The WHO estimates that there are 390 million dengue infections yearly. As temperatures rise, Aedes aegypti's territory will expand, putting 5 billion people at risk by 2080.

A glimmer of hope

Goodell says that the story of the climate crisis is a difficult and dark one, and that it’s been a privilege to research and write about it. There are many inspiring people out there fighting for the future and trying to reimagine how we might live.

It’s through those people and others like them that we can build a new future and a better world. But we all have to want that.

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What is The Heat Will Kill You First about?

The Heat Will Kill You First (2023) warns that extreme heatwaves are becoming more common and will dramatically alter life as we know it – they’re an existential danger. Rising temperatures are already changing the planet, shortening seasons and intensifying disasters. Drawing on scientific research and reportage, it argues that intensifying heat will expose societal fault lines and threaten our communities in dire new ways. Extreme heat may be the most serious threat humanity has ever faced.

Who should read The Heat Will Kill You First?

Concerned citizens who want to know more about the effects of climate change
Policymakers who need to understand the social implications of intensifying heatwaves
Environmental activists seeking evidence to convey the urgency of climate action

About the Author

Jeff Goodell is an award-winning journalist and author. His previous book, The Water Will Come, was named a New York Times Critics Top Book in 2017. He’s covered climate issues for over two decades at Rolling Stone where he’s a contributing editor. He’s also appeared on major media outlets such as NPR, CNN, and MSNBC. His other works include Big Coal and How to Cool the Planet.

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