Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth

An "informative and vividly reported book" that goes beyond the politics of climate change to explore practical ways we can adapt and survive (San Francisco Chronicle). Journalist Mark Hertsgaard has reported on global warming for outlets including the New Yorker, NPR, Time, and Vanity Fair. But it was only after he became a father that he started thinking about the two billion young people worldwide who will spend the rest of their lives coping with mounting climate disruption. In Hot, he presents a well-researched blueprint for how all of us―parents, communities, companies, and countries―can navigate this unavoidable new era. Reporting from across the nation and around the world, Hertsgaard provides examples of ambitious attempts to mitigate the effects of sea-level rise, mega-storms, famine, and other threats--and an "urgent message . . . that citizens and governments cannot afford to ignore" (The Boston Globe). "This readable, passionate book is surprisingly optimistic: Seattle, Chicago, and New York are making long-term, comprehensive plans for flooding and drought. Impoverished farmers in the already drought-stricken African Sahel have discovered how to substantially improve yields and decrease malnutrition by growing trees among their crops, and the technique has spread across the region; Bangladeshis, some of the poorest and most flood-vulnerable yet resilient people on earth, are developing imaginative innovations such as weaving floating gardens from water hyacinth that lift with rising water. Contrasting the Netherlands' 200-year flood plans to the New Orleans Katrina disaster, Hertsgaard points out that social structures, even more than technology, will determine success, and persuasively argues that human survival depends on bottom-up, citizen-driven government action." --Publishers Weekly "His analysis of the impact of global warming on industries as different as winemaking and insurance is intriguing, and his well-supported conclusion that social change can beat back climate change is inspiring . . . an exceptionally productive approach to a confounding reality." --Booklist "This is an important book." --Bill McKibben

About the Author :
Mark Hertsgaard, called "one of America's finest reporters" by Barbara Ehrenreich, is the author of five previous books that have been translated into sixteen languages, including On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency and Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future.

Review :
"Passionate and somber . . . [Hot's] urgent message is one that citizens and governments cannot afford to ignore." --The Boston Globe"Informative and vividly reported book . . . Passionate." --San Francisco Chronicle "[A] readable, passionate book . . . persuasively argues that human survival depends on bottom-up, citizen-driven government action." --Publishers Weekly "Climate change is well underway, writes Hertsgaard, and we must begin to adapt to it even as we work to stop it. . . . The author's stated goal is to make readers feel hopeful so that they will act, but he is candid about his own lapses into despair. . . . Hopefully, this book will prompt readers to action. Starkly clear and of utmost importance." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review "In Hot, one of America's finest journalists confronts one of the world's most urgent problems. Hertsgaard cuts through the denial and disinformation about climate change, offering a clear, tough-minded view of our predicament. More important, he shows that the worst harms of global warming are not inevitable and outlines the steps that can help to avert disaster. Hot bravely takes aim at perhaps the greatest climate threat of all: apathy." --Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation "I know what you're thinking: The problem is so massive I can't bear to read any more about it. But you're wrong. Mark Hertsgaard not only makes the workings of climate change clear, vivid and comprehensible but gives us some reasons for hope. Some of the ways to fight or adapt to global warming are simpler--and more unexpected--than you would think, and some of the places where these lessons are being applied you never would have guessed. Hot is a lively, personal, very human piece of reportage about an issue that will ever more be at the very center of our lives." --Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost "Mark Hertsgaard is the master of a kind of travelogue reporting that lets you understand possibilities and problems in a deep way. But this time, one of the places he's traveling to is the near future, and the news he brings back is equal parts scary, invigorating, and full of challenge. This is an important book." --Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet "Like the fairy tales that Mark reads to his daughter, Chiara, Hot is full of out-sized challenges and glimmers of hope. In this brilliant postcard from the year 2060, Mark explores a world that will be defined, for better or worse, by decisions made today as we conduct a massive planetary science experiment--one that future generations will grade us on." --Terry Tamminen, Secretary of the California EPA for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger