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.