The Heatwave Dilemma

The world is on fire. In southern Europe, wildfires are streaking from Portugal to Greece. In the U.K., airport runways melted as temperatures exceeded 103 degrees for the first time on record. In the U.S. this week, about one in five Americans are living in a place that will be even hotter than the U.K.’s historic mark. And what is our government doing about it? Pretty close to nothing.

But if you look behind these headlines, there’s something very interesting happening. In the past decade, the price of solar electricity has declined by 90 percent. The efficiency of lithium-ion batteries has increased by 90 percent. Per-capita emissions in the U.S. have declined by a quarter since 2005, falling all the way to levels not seen since 1960. These are technological revolutions worth building on. But they will require that Americans get over their allergy to new construction. And build.

Today’s guest is David Wallace-Wells, a writer for The New York Times and the author of the bestseller 'The Uninhabitable Earth.' In this episode, we talk about the future of a hot world, the science of heat, the depressing state of climate policy in Washington, the more hopeful state of climate technology and global adaptation, the end of old-fashioned environmentalism, and the future of a new climate movement.

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: David Wallace-Wells

Producer: Devon Manze

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