* Goodell.J. Heat: Life and death on a scorched planet, Melbourne: Black Inc. (2023).
* A few highlights from the book from a review by Jeff Sparrow , 'The Saturday Paper', July 29-August 4, 2023:
+ Through all of animal and human evolution the management of heat has preoccupied all creatures!
+Once human internal systems reach 40.5 degrees centigrade we die. That is why the 40 degrees plus days- in some places near 50 degrees- of heat across Europe recently, are so significant.
+ Even more, the Earth is now confirmed as warmer than at any other time in 125,000 yearsl
+The oceans and seas, which are one of the most important temperature balancing systems, Goodell suggests, now absorb excess heat equivalent to what three nuclear bombs would release every second -[ and the warmer the seas the more stored carbon is released to the atmosphere.] These new forces are now reshaping the entire marine world.
+ Movements on land are being reshaped also. Sparrow reports a study quoted by Goodell of 4000 animals that indicates the patterns of most species are shifting 20 kilometres each decade. And human 'climate refugees' are changing the world's population distributions.
+ Another aspect of human habitation that Goodell discusses are the unsustainable houses and cities that we have created: for example, dark rooves and roads that hold rather than reflect sun; massive clearing of forests, wetlands and urban trees; badly designed large houses with no overhanging shading eaves or verandahs and no space between, requiring artificial heating and cooling increasing energy use; urban city heat sinks blocking air movement; parks and ovals covered in heat-keeping artifical grass.
+ Goodell's timely analysis is a further dire warning that should spur everyone of us into action!: to actions that we, as individuals, as community and state citizens, as Australians must take NOW to make ourselves, our homes, our communities, our Earth as sustainable as possible: to replace all uses of fossil fuels with those of renewable energy: +That is what we in Electrifying Bradfield are all about! COME JOIN US IN OUR ENDEAVOURS!
+In the words of 87 year old David Suzuki, one of the world's greatest environmentalists, speaking to an older adult audience: 'Get the hell off the golf course! Get off the couch! You've got something that nobody else in society has - you and I have lived an entire lifetime and we've learned a hell of a lot during that lifetime - that we need clean air, clean water and clean food to survive. Kids know that, but a lot of we adults seem to have forgotten it!'
[by David Smith]
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