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

by Jeff Goodell

fenugreek water (to make fenugreek water, fifteen fenugreek seeds, which smell like maple syrup and have long been used in India as a medicinal herb, are dropped into a glass of water at night, then consumed the next morning).

AppHarvest, the company he started shortly after we talked, had gone public and had a market cap of $500 million.

“The bones we use to hear with were once gill bones of sharks,” explained Neil Shubin, professor of anatomy at the University of Chicago and author of Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5 Billion-Year History of the Human Body. “Our hands are modified fish fins, and the genes that build our basic body architecture are shared with worms and fish.”

In short, heat waves are more like stories than meteorological events. Each one has a particular setting, a cast of characters, and different dramatic flash points.

To help people select plants that will survive in a harsher climate, researchers at Macquarie University in Australia developed a program called Which Plant Where. Home gardeners can go online, type in their location, and get recommendations for plants that will do well in the climate of, say, 2040.