The Climate Crisis Means Longer, Hotter Summers. What Does That Mean For Human Health?

Southern California is getting scorched this summer, and we're not alone as high temperature records break across the U.S.

Climate researchers say life-threatening heat waves around the world this year would be "virtually impossible" without the influence of human-caused climate change.

To learn more about what life looks like on a warming planet and how heat affects human health, LAist interviewed author Jeff Goodell. His new book, The Heat Will Kill You First, Life and Death on a Scorched Planet, argues that we need to be taking extreme heat way more seriously.

This conversation with LAist 89.3's Julia Paskin has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Why this book now?

LAist: You've written so many books on this topic. Why did you decide to write this one in particular?

Jeff Goodell: Well, I've been writing about climate change for 10 or 15 years, and I still didn't really understand the sort of risks of heat and heat waves. Then I happened to be walking through downtown Phoenix on a 117 degree day, and I thought I wasn't going to make it to my destination.

My heart started pounding, I started feeling dizzy, and I thought, "Wow. I really didn't even understand how dangerous heat can be." And I realized this was a subject that was worth exploring.

Global warming may sound gentle, but it is not

LAist: You report that as people react to the climate crisis, they don't seem to be concerned especially about avoiding the places where it gets really, really hot. Why do you think that is and why is that a problem?

JG: Well, I think we're very confused about how we talk about heat. I'm a native Californian and I grew up in California. Warm days are nice. You go to the beach, you hang out. Even the phrase "global warming" just sounds like this sort of quiet, gentle thing.

And one of the things that I've come to understand about heat is that it is extremely dangerous, especially as we move into this hotter and hotter climate, which is making these extremes higher and higher. In 2021, in the summer here on the West Coast, there was a heat wave [and] British Columbia was 121 degrees and a town essentially spontaneously combusted.

We're moving into an era where we don't know how extreme it can get and how quickly. And the risk to you and me and to our loved ones and to everything that we know is really misunderstood.

What makes extreme heat so dangerous

LAist: I want to ask you a little bit more locally about some of our most vulnerable areas in Southern California. I'm thinking about predictions for areas like the Inland Empire that are further away from the cooling air of the coast where we're probably going to have a lot more days over 125 degrees for longer periods of time without relief. Can you talk about why that is particularly dangerous and what happens to the body? Why does heat kill you in those kinds of circumstances?

JG: I'm glad you brought this up, because the projections especially for the agricultural regions in the Central Valley really are extreme. And there's this notion that this is not a big deal, we all have air conditioning, just turn up the air conditioning [and] everything's going to be fine.

There's a lot of problems with that, but one of the problems is that people who are working in the fields and who are harvesting our food and growing our food do not have air conditioning. And there are billions of people on the planet who don't have air conditioning. And when it's hot out … Our body temperatures are around 98. And if your temperature goes up to 100, 101, something's wrong. And if it goes up to 105, you're in the emergency room.

LAist: You don't shy away from describing how frightening life on a warming planet is. Tell us a little bit more [about] why you take this more confrontational approach on how real the effects are going to be.

JG: I think that the conversation about climate change has been too gentle. I don't feel like I'm an alarmist at all, but I really think that we do not grasp the scope and scale of the changes that are coming our way, despite the fact that it's been in the news for decades, despite the fact that everybody is more or less familiar with it.

But I'm not talking about climate deniers and things like that. People who think that it's some kind of conspiracy thing run by the Chinese or Bill Gates or whatever. Even people who are relatively educated about the risks of climate change don't really get what's happening. And these extreme heat waves that we're seeing right now are one manifestation of that.

We're moving into a new climate era in which the rules of these extreme events are very unclear and it's getting worse fast and we need to understand that.

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