The Heat and the Fury
On the Frontlines of Climate Violence
328 pages
6 x 9
20 black and white photographs and /or illustrations
328 pages
6 x 9
20 black and white photographs and /or illustrations
“Schwartzstein’s vignettes of each troubled region are vibrantly narrated as he encounters indignant locals and has run-ins with menacing state security officials attempting to block his investigations into what they invariably consider a ‘sensitive’ subject. It’s a riveting journey through a world running hot.” -- Publishers Weekly, starred
As a journalist on the climate security beat, Peter Schwartzstein has been chased by kidnappers, badly beaten, detained by police, and told, in no uncertain terms, that he was no longer welcome in certain countries. Yet these personal brushes with violence are simply a hint of the conflict simmering in our warming world.
Schwartzstein has visited ravaged Iraqi towns where ISIS used drought as a recruiting tool and weapon of terror. In Bangladesh, he has interviewed farmers-turned-pirates who can no longer make a living off the land and instead make it off bloody ransoms. Security forces have blocked him from a dam being constructed along the Nile that has brought Egypt and Ethiopia to the brink of war. And he has heard the fear in the voices of women from around the world who say their husbands’ tempers flare when the temperature ticks up.
In The Heat and the Fury, he not only puts readers on the frontlines of climate violence but gives us the context to make sense of seemingly senseless acts. As Schwartzstein deftly shows, climate change is often the spark that ignites long smoldering fires, the extra shove that pushes individuals, communities, and even nations over the line between frustration and lethal fury. What, he asks, can ratchet down the aggression? Can cooperation on climate actually become a salve to heal old wounds?
There are no easy answers on a planet that is fast becoming a powder keg. But Schwartzstein’s incisive analysis of geopolitics, unparalleled on-the-ground reporting, and keen sense of human nature offer the clearest picture to date of the violence that threatens us all.
"Schwartzstein’s vignettes of each troubled region are vibrantly narrated as he encounters indignant locals and has run-ins with menacing state security officials attempting to block his investigations into what they invariably consider a ‘sensitive’ subject. It’s a riveting journey through a world running hot."
Publishers Weekly, starred
"In his first book, The Heat and the Fury: On the Frontlines of Climate Violence, political correspondent Peter Schwartzstein offers a vital and riveting account of how climate change is already pulling societies apart, feeding violence across the globe."
Scientific American
"Our hotter planet is, already, a harsher and more violent one. But why? And how? And how much worse might it get? Peter Schwartzstein's The Heat and the Fury is a richly reported, beautifully rendered, remarkably complex, and rewarding meditation on the interplay of planetary instability and human brutality—a landmark work on perhaps the essential question of our time."
David Wallace-Wells, author of "The Uninhabitable Earth"
"The heat will move us. It will rearrange growing seasons and supply chains, building codes and property values, immigrant streams and national identities. And the hotter it gets, science shows, the more violent we get. Few people understand the local safety and global security implications of this like Peter Schwartzstein and even fewer have the intrepid reporting chops to take us around the world with gripping evidence and lessons learned. On an overheating Earth, where the most prepared will suffer least, this is a must-read."
Bill Weir, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent and host of "The Wonder List"
"All too often, journalists in war zones are confined to exploring the immediate violence around them. In this deeply reported book, Peter Schwartzstein does something different, investigating how climate change can not only exacerbate inequity and instability, but how it also interacts with other drivers to foment future conflict. This book is a real contribution to our understanding of the complex relationship between climate and violence."
Azmat Khan, Pulitzer Prize winner for international reporting
"At last—the red hot link between climate change and conflict laid out clearly, and laid bare. Schwartzstein has been, has seen, and tells it as it is."
Tim Marshall, author of "Prisoners of Geography"
"Fascinating. In a mammoth reporting feat, Schwartzstein takes readers across the world to the frontlines of climate change – from the villages of the Sahel to Iraq's fight against jihadis, while always making sure to include nuance and context. I learnt a huge amount from this book."
Sally Hayden, author of "My Fourth Time, We Drowned"
"Never has a book on the climate crisis been so thrilling and so rich in adventure. Beautifully written, darkly comedic in places, and with a keen ear and eye for detail…[it] carries warnings for us all of distant crises that will not be contained as the planet's climate calamity worsens."
Quentin Sommerville, BBC Middle East correspondent
"A remarkable feat of both reporting and storytelling. This book is an essential documentation of how and where we’ve gone so wrong, and yet also one that offers some hope for resolutions. Schwartzstein’s writing deftly builds to a crescendo of climate-driven conflict and instability, told with equal amounts of rigor and humanity."
Leon McCarron, author of "Wounded Tigris"
A Note to the Reader Regarding Language and Sources
Introduction: The Fundamentals of Climate Violence
Who, where, what, why, how
Chapter 1. Cultivating Terror
How did water crises fuel ISIS? A years-long investigation
reveals the environmental roots of Iraqi extremism.
Chapter 2. Bandit Fodder
Along a Bangladeshi coastline battered by sea level rise, the
pirates are king.
Chapter 3. Water Wars?
History tells us that nations do not fight over water. Egypt and
Ethiopia, roiled by a new mega-dam on the Nile, might break
the mold.
Chapter 4. Merchants of Thirst
What happens when countries have the bad luck to have bad
rulers during bad conditions? Meet the men feasting off Nepal’s
dysfunction.
Chapter 5. Deadly Pastures
As access to water and land in West Africa fluctuates, farmers
and herders are duking it out over the scraps.
Chapter 6. No Jobs, No Peace
For years, the Jordanian government has recruited unemployed
rural men into the military. Now drought is torching that
strategy, and no one knows what will take its place.
Chapter 7. Hunger Games
Having exhausted their own water, rich nations are seeking food
in poor ones, like Sudan. Cue chaos.
Chapter 8. The West and the Rest
We think Western democracies are immune from climate
violence. They’re not.
Chapter 9. Out of Chaos, Hope?
In the right circumstances, environment and climate can bring
warring communities back together.
Acknowledgments
Further Reading
Notes
Index
About the Author
Peter Schwartzstein will be on the Busboys stage alongside executive director for the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, Meaghan Parker, to share their experiences investigating climate violence. Copies of Peter's book, The Heat and the Fury: On the Frontlines of Climate Violence will be available for purchase during and after the event, and Schwartzstein will be signing following the program.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of the book will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is in person and will not be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books
Across the globe, record-breaking heat waves, floods, and other climate stressors are eroding communities’ resilience, compounding conflict risks, and deepening inequality. In response, countries have committed to a global energy transition that could bring its own set of geopolitical risks. Understanding how climate change, conflict, and peace interact has therefore become a priority for countries and multilateral institutions, as reflected in the COP28 Declaration on Climate, Relief, Recovery, and Peace.
Join the Wilson Center, in partnership with the Center for Climate & Security, on October 1 for a dialogue with climate security pioneer Sherri Goodman, environmental journalist Peter Schwartzstein, Middle East expert Merissa Khurma, and Anne Witkowski, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, US Department of State, to unpack the impact of climate change on security risks around the globe, the evolution of US engagement on climate security, and opportunities to strengthen stability and build cooperation through climate action. The discussion will feature insights from two new books, Sherri Goodman’s Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security and Peter Schwartzstein’s The Heat and the Fury: On the Frontlines of Climate Violence.