We saw the flooding in New England at the start of tonight's program. Tens of millions of people living in the Southwest, of course, are dealing with extreme weather of a different kind. That part of the country is coping with day after day of triple digit heat, and the National Weather Service says it's one of the longest heat waves in modern history. That heat is even more dangerous than you might realize We're going to focus on that with climate journalist and author Jeff Goodell, who's out with a new book on this very subject, called The Heat will kill you first. Life and death on a scorched planet. Thank you for being with us. Happy to be here. Some 54 Million Americans are expected to see triple digit heat this week. And in your book you like an extreme heat to having the barrel of a gun pointed at you Explain that, you know, we talk a lot about heat about global warming in our world now, And there's this idea that heat is just sort of gentle thing that you know, we have to You know, dressed differently for turn the air conditioning on a little bit. I think what we're seeing now is the that heat is a very dangerous force. That heat is something that can kill you very quickly. I mean, this book for me came out of that kind of experience when I was walking down the street in Phoenix and 115 degree day, and I was not sure I was going to make it to my destination. And you know, he doesn't He is a lethal force. You write about the tragic death in 2021 of a young California family on a hiking trail to healthy parents, their baby a dog found on a trail minutes from their home. Tell us about that story. And what takeaways there are from that incredibly tragic story, Um, family, the moved from Silicon Valley into the foothills of the Sierras to get away from the hustle bustle lived more in the woods. They hiked a lot. They went out for a hike early one morning. They had been warned. It was going to be a hot day They hiked down to a river can Ian And then around noon, started hiking back up and had to hike up this two mile cross of switchback of where it was really very sunny, and there was no shade because of wildfires the year before, and the next day they were found. The entire family is found dead on the trail, and what's tragic and sad about this is that it really underscores even for people who are in good shape, even people who are outdoorsy people who think that they understand heat don't understand how dangerous it is. Is and how quickly you can get in trouble. How do we solve for the fact that three of the country's most populous states, California, Texas and Florida are right now experiencing a punishing heat wave lots of people in places that are really hot and then beyond that, you've got some 15 million people who spend part of their job outside the so called sweat economy. These states have seen a big population growth in recent decades. People like First of all people like warmer weather jet in general, they would rather live in a warmer place than a cooler place. There is the myth of air conditioning that you know, it'll all be okay, because we can just turn the air conditioning on and everything will be fine. And I moved from the sort of relatively cool of the Northeast to Austin and I moved there because I fell in love with a woman who lived there. And so people move for different kinds of reasons, right? But I think that as as climate change accelerates as these heat waves become more and more brutal, it's going to change that equation. And because you know there are it's fine if you, you know Are living in your air conditioned bubble. But millions of people do not live in the air conditioned bubble and are we can't air condition the wheat fields and cornfields and all the other living creatures that are not going to be able to be Sort of nestled into some cool spaces. It becomes this sort of weird, Um, life in a bubble feeling when you're in replace like Texas based on your research. How hot can it get? What should we expect in the years to come? That is A really good and important and difficult to answer questions. We know we can talk about general warming of the planet averages. But what we are seeing now and what we saw, for example, in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, when there is that extreme heat wave that killed 1000 people. It got to be 100 and 21 degrees in British Columbia. I mean, no climate models predicted that it was like snow in the Sahara or something like that. So what we're seeing is as we mess with the atmospheric dynamics of the planet with by putting by burning fossil fuels, putting more C 02 into the atmosphere. We're changing the dynamics in ways that were not. We can't really say where the next heat wave is going to hit. How brutal it will be, how long it will last, and it's a little bit frightening. In fact, it's more than a little bit frightening. It's very frightening because You know? Could it get to 125 degrees in Texas? No one knows your book is in many ways an urgent warning. What do people fail to grasp about the threats posed by excessive heat? And what the solutions look like? I think two things. People, um don't grasp about one is that it can kill you and it will kill you. And it's predatory. It goes after he will kill first people who are vulnerable who have any kind of heart conditions? Heat puts a lot of strain on your heart. So if you have hypothermia or any kind of heart Problems taking certain kinds of medication that affects your circulation. You're increasingly vulnerable to heat. And the other thing that people don't get about heat is that it is the primary driver of all these changes that we're seeing on our planet. The wildfires see level rise drought. All that stuff is happening because it's getting hotter and hotter. And so heat is this sort of fundamental force that is shaping our world in ways that we don't really understand and what we can do about it. Very first thing we need to do is cut fossil fuel emissions quickly because our planet is warm. Up because we're putting more fossil fuel into the atmosphere. Second, we need to get smart about the risks of heat. We have to whether it's by reading my book. Googling reading somebody else's book. Whatever Your method is understanding the risk of heat and third, we need to change how we build cities and where we are and how we live in cities because cities are much hotter than the rural areas around them. So everything from opening cooling centers to planting more street trees to thinking differently about how buildings are built, so they're not so dependent upon air conditioning. We really have to rethink how we live. Goodell the book is the Heat will kill you first. Life and death on the scorched planet. Thank you for being with us. Thank you.
I spent an entire day tripping on acid in 114F heat in Northern California. It was pretty fucking brutal..Just laid in my hammock in the shade sweating my balls off listening to Radiohead for like 8 hours wondering why I do these things to myself.
Even the breeze was hot. Felt like someone holding a hair dryer in my face.