By Charlotte Huff, AHCJ Texas Health Journalism Fellow

As heat waves become increasingly common, Jeff Goodell wanted to convey "the visceral feel of what heat does to the body." Unlike with other trauma, such as gunshot wounds, extreme temperatures exert bodily damage that's difficult to see and thus understand, said the Austin-based climate journalist, who spoke at Health Journalism 2024 about his book, "The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet."

It's challenging for officials to even calculate the number of heat-related deaths, as it requires better knowledge about the context and underlying circumstances, said Goodell, who spoke with AHCJ Environmental Health Beat Leader Paul Gordon. For instance, someone who died of a heart attack may have sweltered for days in an unairconditioned apartment.

Local officials also are not motivated to push for compiling the full tally, he said. "Come to Phoenix and die," he quipped, is not a savvy marketing slogan.

Goodell described extreme heat as "a predatory force" in terms of its human impact. "It really goes after the weakest and the most vulnerable first."

AHCJ Environmental Health Beat Leader Paul Gordon speaks with climate journalist and author Jeff Goodell at HJ24. Photo by Zachary Linhares

Even for those individuals living with air conditioning, the technology provides a "false sense of security," potentially putting them at lethal risk during an extended blackout, Goodell said. As one example, he described in a June 3 New York Times op-ed the extended power outage that impacted many Houston residents following a "derecho" windstorm that blew through the city this spring.

But steps can be taken in local communities, such as by planting more trees and creating green spaces in lower-income neighborhoods to provide more "shade equity," he said. Municipalities also can open pop-up cooling centers to better protect vulnerable individuals when temperatures soar.

Moving forward, some propose raising awareness of heat's dangerheat's profile, such as by naming and grading the severity of heat waves, similar to the approach with hurricanes, he said.

Despite the stakes involved, though, Goodell feels that there's some reason for hope, as communities will be forced to innovate every aspect of daily life, and journalists can play a role in educating them about why that's happening.

"How we build cities is going to change," he said. "How we're going to get our food is going to change. Where we get our energy is going to change."

The suffering that humans have experienced and will continue to experience, he stressed, can't be minimized. Yet, he added: "I just believe that we can use this crisis, this emergency, as a catalyst for building a better world."

Charlotte Huff is an independent journalist based in Fort Worth, Texas. She was a 2024 AHCJ-Texas Health Journalism Fellow.