“I don’t think we’re going to have some kind of spiritual awakening where we all realize, ‘oh my God,’ and everybody changes their lives. I think these moments are small steps in a long, hard, kind of guerilla war to change our world, and that we need to use these moments for education and awakening—but there’s no tipping point either for many of the climate systems, or for our own sort of psychological systems and culture.”
– Jeff Goodell on 2023’s record-breaking heat
We are entering a new climate— One that looks very different from the one we’ve known, Jeff Goodell concludes in his latest book, “The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet”.
This summer has produced record-breaking temperatures in nearly every corner of the world, including even the deepest parts of our oceans. Sea ice around Antarctica is at a record-low for the satellite era. July Fourth was the hottest day on Earth since 1979, and potentially in the last 125,000 years, according to some estimates. Lastly, an oppressive and ongoing heat wave primarily focused along the Ten Across transect, has placed 100 million Americans, or a third of the country, under excessive heat warnings and advisories for the foreseeable future. These figures suggest this will be a dangerous and influential summer for the future of our planet.
Watch (or listen to the Ten Across Conversations Podcast version) as Ten Across founder Duke Reiter and author Jeff Goodell discuss the uncanny timing of “The Heat Will Kill You First” and its place in Jeff’s last 20 years of climate reporting.
This interview was recorded in front of a live audience at the Gensler office in Downtown Los Angeles in July of 2023.
About Jeff Goodell
Jeff Goodell is the author of “The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet,” a gripping and timely exploration of the impacts of extreme heat today and in the future. Jeff has covered climate change for more than two decades at Rolling Stone and is the author of six previous books including “The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities and the Remaking of the Civilized World,” and “Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future.”
About Our Sponsor
This fireside chat made possible by generous support of the Clean Cooling Collaborative as part of their 10X Prize Clean Cooling Competition and extreme heat awareness sponsorship. The Clean Cooling Collaborative is a philanthropic initiative of ClimateWorks Foundation that is working to create a future with efficient, climate-friendly cooling for all. A philanthropic initiative of ClimateWorks Foundation launched in 2017 as the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP), Clean Cooling Collaborative focuses on making cooling more sustainable and accessible.
