Book Review: The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet by Jeff Goodell

 

 

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

400 pages, Hardcover

Published July, 2023 by Little, Brown and Company

First, let me state this is the most important book of the year, maybe the century so far. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry of the Future made the same point. If you don’t want your desperate pleas for action in your own self-interest to keep the world sustainable for your children to have science-fictional aspects then here are the facts. Told with personal stories of travels in the warming Arctic, the story of the mother who baked to death in her apartment, and young families who were fried to death on the hiking trails serve as a wake-up call that will not get the attention that T-swift got for going to a football game.

This book will not make you feel good and should be shelved equally in the science and birth control sections. This is going to be an angry and bitter book review. It is not Jeff Goodall or the book’s fault. He did his job, and he didn’t well. I am going to talk more about me than I probably should. The reality is that this book is about the heat slowly making our planet unsustainable and it is going to cause these types of emotions.  We are all experiencing the world what Goodall is warning us about. Just like the fiction book (The Deluge by Stephen Markley) I was reading at the same time; the political situation is such that no matter how many of you read this book - I as the reviewer have to accept you are not going to do shit.

Not the books’ fault. I am been there on a smaller scale. In 2018 I had a horror novel called Ring of Fire come out from Deadite Press. The novel went on to be nominated for a Splatterpunk award for best extreme horror. The novel was my attempt to write a modern environmental apocalypse novel and the set-up was a massive wildfire that surrounded San Diego and set off a cascade of terrors. That summer the skies around the globe were black with smoke and as I did interviews promoting the book it was uncomfortable. I spent 13 years researching and writing and was looking prophetic. I hated people telling me over and over, hey man sounds like your book. So I feel for Goodell.

No one who writes a non-fiction book like Silent Spring or Diet for New America wants to be right, When Science Fiction authors in the 70s write environmental Science Fiction novels Like Chelsea Quinn Yarbo’s False Dawn or John Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up they hope they play a role in preventing the nightmare they envisioned. John Robbins the son of the ice cream empire Baskin and Robbins wrote the book that opened my eyes.  

Hardcore music and punk introduced me to veganism and environmentalism in the early 90s, but it was reading that book written in the late 80s that convinced me I had to change. You see in 1993 when Bill Clinton was starting his first term was the when I started to be angry and scared about these issues. I didn’t really like vegetables, and lived in Indiana at the time so vegan resources were next to nothing. It was a serious step for me. A book and reading about the dire state of the planet encouraged me to change my life. Thirty years later I can say I am still vegan and have been sounding this very alarm the whole damn time.

I knew many people influenced by Diet for a New America, in many ways we have made amazing progress, and yet the animals keep dying, and the water and grain keep getting wasted turning animals into unhealthy fatty proteins when alternatives exist.  I still firmly believe Veganism is the first and most important thing you can do to turn the tide. If there is no reason to teach this consumer society about the responsibility of each purchase.

If we are going to survive as a species The Heat Will Kill You First will have to have a larger impact. No pressure on this book, but I think it is species' survival.  Jeff Goodall lays out the gravity of the situation by highlighting the creeping threat of heat. No one likes a heatwave, they are uncomfortable, scary, and dangerous. They are not inevitable.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, led to a revolution that greatly reduced chemicals polluting our air. Diet for New America by John Robbins kicked off a revolution of plant-based activists and a wide expansion of foods available to combat animal oppression and environmental waste. Is it fair to expect this book to spark a revolution? The unfair part is over.  Our generation (Some of us spoke up and acted) fucked over your kids and grandkids. I don’t know how many of the ancient members of the Senate and Congress will read this book. That is the problem Diane Feinstein (for one example) just avoided the horror of the future by dying. She can claim environmental legacy because of a few surface actions but honestly, she did little to stop it because she doesn’t have to deal with it. Mitch McConnel, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi will all die before the deepest consequences of the heat force your children to survive in Air-conditioned bunkers eating Taro and Amaranth paste because the land can’t grow anything else.

I hardly ever say this EVERYONE needs to read this book. Unless you are reading this from some other planet as an archeological study of how this insane species baked their own asses to death you need to read this book.  This might sound harsh but honestly, there is not anything more important. Every person, every being of every species we share this planet with will suffer if you don’t act that includes everyone – yes you.