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

by Jeff Goodell

In the past decade, scientists who study the movement of animals have found that of the four thousand species that they’d tracked, between 40 and 70 percent had altered their distribution. On average, terrestrial creatures are moving nearly twenty kilometers every decade. Marine creatures, who are largely free of barriers to seeking cooler waters, are moving four times faster than land-based animals.

asked Otto if she can imagine a day in the near future when a company like ExxonMobil is held liable in a court of law for the deaths in an extreme heat wave. “Yes, I can,” she replied without hesitation. “Not only can I imagine it. I believe it will happen sooner than you think.”

By 1977, Exxon (now ExxonMobil) not only knew that decades of burning fossil fuels would heat up the atmosphere, but developed in-house climate models that projected those changes with remarkable accuracy.