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

Heatstroke, infectious disease, and attacks by starving polar bears are among the perils posed by rising temperatures, according to this startling report. Rolling Stone contributing editor Goodell (The Water Will Come) surveys how extreme heat is ravaging the planet, describing the 2021 wildfire that tore through the town of Lytton in British Columbia during an unprecedented 121 °F heat wave, the sudden deaths by overheating of a California family out for a hike in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills, and the spread of disease-carrying mosquitoes into warming regions. The author also details how his own life has been affected by climate change, as when he recounts a trip he took with friends to the Canadian Arctic, where they were shadow ed by polar bears that were likely hungry and eyeing the group’s food because the lack of ice floes made it difficult to hunt seals. The alarming case studies are well complemented by elegant reportage on overheated regions (“The air feels solid, a hazy, ozone-soaked curtain of heat,” he writes of a summer day in Phoenix) and disturbing explanations of the dire physical effects of excessive heat (a 107 °F body temperature melts cell membranes). The result is a sobering assessment of the risks of global warming. (July)