AC Won't Save You from the Heat Dome
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2026
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Well, the movement to change society so it stops heating up the world didn’t take, so now we need to figure out how to change society to deal with a hotter planet. That means new forms of insurance, new models for construction and—yes, looking at you, Europe—more air conditioning.
Guest: Jeff Goodell, contributing writer at Rolling Stone and the author of the book The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet.
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Podcast production by Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Jeff, welcome. How does it feel to be the heat guy? |
| 0:13.0 | Well, not so good. |
| 0:15.3 | Jeff Goodell is a journalist who writes about climate change. |
| 0:18.7 | I mean, it's like, I would rather be like the ice cream guy or something like that. |
| 0:22.3 | You know, that would be more fun. |
| 0:24.5 | For a couple of years now, Jeff's been our go-to guy on heat. |
| 0:28.2 | So when I heard about the impending heat dome in the eastern U.S., |
| 0:32.2 | I figured Jeff would have a little advice. |
| 0:35.5 | I live in Austin, Texas. |
| 0:37.3 | I mean, my whole life is planned around heat. |
| 0:39.2 | Five months of the year, it's really hard to do much of any kind of physical activity or anything outdoors during the day. |
| 0:46.8 | I mean, we joke about it here about living vampire lives. |
| 0:57.1 | Jeff's an optimistic guy. |
| 0:59.1 | He knows he can't prevent the heat, not without major structural change. |
| 1:03.2 | In the meantime, he wants all of us to get better at living with it. |
| 1:08.0 | Well, I do feel like people are kind of in my little sample group asking more intelligent questions, that they're not thinking that all they have to do is, you know, put on sunblock and they're fine. |
| 1:21.7 | You know, they understand that sunblock doesn't help with heat exposure. |
| 1:25.5 | I mean, so I think we're beyond the sort of, I feel like there's been a little bit of a movement in kind of cultural knowledge about heat. |
| 1:35.1 | Can I make a counter argument to you? |
| 1:37.2 | Sure. |
| 1:39.1 | I was thinking about D.C. because, of course, Washington, D.C. has huge July 4th celebrations, but then especially |
| 1:45.1 | this year where there's, you know, going to be the 250th birthday celebration. And I was reading |
... |
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