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

by Jeff Goodell

Right now we’re more than halfway to 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius) of warming from preindustrial temperatures, which scientists have long warned is the threshold for dangerous climate change.

Until we figure out a way to suck massive amounts of CO2 out of the sky, we will be stuck with a hotter planet.

“We’re all in the storm, but we’re not in the same boat,” Heather McTeer Toney, the former mayor of Greenville, Mississippi, said during testimony before the US Congress. “Some of us are sitting on aircraft carriers while others are just bobbing along on a floatie.”

The human body, like all living things, is a heat machine. Just being alive generates heat. But if your body gets too hot too fast—it doesn’t matter if that heat comes from the outside on a hot day or the inside from a raging fever—you are in big trouble.

Exercise drastically accelerates temperature rise. Anytime you flex a muscle, it generates heat. In fact, when you move a muscle, only about 20 percent of the energy you expend actually goes to muscle contraction; the other 80 percent is released as heat.

A well-hydrated human can sweat up to three quarts per hour, but no matter how much water you drink, your body can only replace about two quarts of water per hour—so if you are in a hot place for a long time, dehydration is a concern.

The only effective treatment for heatstroke is to get a person’s core body temperature down, fast. A cold shower or bath, or tubs (or, as I mentioned in the prologue, body bags) of ice, is one way to do this. Another is to quickly cool places on the body where, because of the structure of our veins, a lot of blood circulates close to the surface: the bottoms of the feet, the palms of the hands, the upper part of the face.

I have since learned that after you spend a few weeks in a hot climate, your body makes subtle adjustments that help you better tolerate heat stress.

By one count, half the people who have ever lived have been killed by mosquito-borne pathogens.

It’s how the climate crisis works: the rich pollute, the rest suffer.

What’s at stake here is not just architecture. It’s our history, our culture, and our identity. But given the acceleration and urgency of the climate crisis, the harsh truth is, not everything can be saved.

For me, 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 to all living things. Wherever we may be headed, we are all on this journey together.