It is probably best to read about the heat from June to August. In the summer of 2024, the sun was hotter than ever, and the temperature rose to record levels not only in Ukraine but all over the world. Nevertheless, the book «The Heat Will Kill You First» by «Bearded Tamarin» is worth reading at any time of the year. Even now, on cold and sometimes frosty days, humanity must always remember that the heat will definitely return. And then it will become even greater. This is what our book is about today.
Pluses:
quality publication; a very important topic raised by the author; complex things written in very simple words; the story is presented through the author's own impressions and stories of real people
Minuses:
the book frightens with the future that will definitely happen, so not everyone will like it, at least because of negative emotions
The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet
Author Jeff Goodell
Publisher Bearded Tamarin
Language Ukrainian
Number of pages 368
Cover Solid
Year of publication 2024
Size 135×210 mm
Website tamarinbooks.com
If you haven’t already guessed, the book «The Heat Will Kill You First» covers the issue of global warming. And it does so in the most effective and simple way possible. The latter is very important because usually such books are full of a lot of scientific research, complicated terms, tons of information, etc. Not that this is a bad thing, but such things are usually intended for the widest possible, but still limited audience. But this book is written in such a way that it can be read by as many readers as possible.
Yes, of course, there are plenty of terms and scientific facts, but they are all presented in the simplest and most accessible way possible. Especially in comparison to other books by the publisher, which often contain more scientific than popular information. But this is a different case.
You don’t need to be an expert at all, or even have a superficial understanding of a particular field, to read this book. «The Heat Will Kill You First» plays in the field of popular science literature, but there is a minimum of scientific content, and the rest is stories about people, cities, regions, and continents that are already suffering from the heat.
This book is about heat and its modern interpretation. Of course, everyone wants to go on vacation to conventional warm countries, soak up the sun, sunbathe and swim in the warm blue sea. But Jeff Goodell shows that all of these places will soon turn into danger zones. And we are not talking about «once upon a time», but already. The author cites many examples of significant temperature increases in America, Europe, Africa, Asia, etc.
As the author himself says, the purpose of this book is to convince readers to think differently about heat. In his understanding, heat is not something we see on a thermometer in summer and feel on our skin. According to Jeff Goodell, heat is an active force that can kill you before you even realize that your life is in danger.
The book is full of stories of people who died from the heat, even though they were not bothered by it at all. It reminds me a lot of you and me, especially in the southern part of Ukraine, where summer temperatures in the shade can reach 39 degrees. Our pensioners don’t even have air conditioning, let alone any instructions on how to act in such situations, how to protect themselves from the heat, how to cool down quickly, etc.
Jeff Goodell realizes that most of humanity ignores and denies the problem of global warming, so this book is his way of getting us to act. That’s why the author doesn’t focus on the complicated scientific issues, but rather on the human stories and the real consequences for regions, ecosystems, and entire continents that he has seen with his own eyes.
The author traveled all over the world, visited the Arctic and Antarctic, where he watched the largest glaciers melt together with scientists and tells us about this and the future consequences. He saw hungry polar bears dying of starvation because they cannot get food in the glaciers they are used to — they simply do not exist because they have melted, or they are there, but much smaller and much further away than usual. He was off the coast of Australia and watched the nearly destroyed Great Barrier Reef.
The book also predicts a major pandemic of the future. It will take millions of lives and will come from «dormant» viruses in glaciers. More and more of them are melting, so eventually something long-forgotten and destructive «will wake up» and take on humanity.
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