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In this ground-breaking book, environmental journalist, Peter Schwartzstein, takes the reader on the first on-the-ground exploration of climate change's contribution to global conflict. From the ravaged villages of Iraq, where ISIS has used drought as a recruiting tool and weapon of terror, to the pirate-ridden waters of Bangladesh – and drawing on more than a decade of reporting from dozens of countries – Schwartzstein writes about the unexpected ways in which climate change is feeding global unrest and conflict. Through the stories of the soldiers, farmers, spies and others affected around the world, he makes sense of a form of conflict that remains poorly understood, even as it devastates the lives of so many millions of people.
While researching The Heat & the Fury, Schwartzstein was chased by kidnappers, detained by police and told, in no uncertain terms, that he was no longer welcome in certain countries. Yet, as he recounts, these personal brushes with violence are simply a hint of the conflict simmering in our warming world.
As Schwartztein's unparalleled reporting shows, there's nothing inevitable about climate violence. In fact, as he sets out, the same stresses that are pitching people against one another can even help bring them back together.
Peter Schwartzstein is an award-winning British-American journalist and researcher, who has reported on water, food security, and particularly the conflict-climate nexus across more than thirty countries in the Middle East, Africa, and occasionally further afield. His writing appears in National Geographic, the New York Times, BBC, Bloomberg Businessweek, and many other outlets. He is a Global Fellow with the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program, a TED fellow and a fellow at the Center for Climate and Security.
Based in Athens, Greece, he consults for UNDP, UNEP, and Amnesty International, among other organisations, and regularly speaks at climate security and other environmental conferences. The Heat and the Fury is his first book.
"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
"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
"A compelling and expert read about the most important issue of our times that is in danger of being marginalised by an extraordinary lack of political will."
– Patrick Cockburn, author of The Rise of Islamic State
"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. While bullets and mortars fly overhead most of us see only the immediate conflict, Schwartzstein sees the bigger picture. He takes us into the trenches of the climate emergency and exposes the role it plays in destabilising communities, states, and the world. This is a brave and unique book. It paints a grim picture of the accelerating instability of the poorest communities in already vulnerable states. But is still a thrilling read thanks to the swashbuckling adventures of Schwartzstein. Travelling by bus, boat, and donkey cart, he takes us from Samarra to Khartoum and Kathmandu and beyond, meeting pirates, smugglers, jihadists and militiamen along the way. Beautifully written, darkly comedic in places and with a keen ear and eye for detail"
– Quentin Sommerville, BBC Middle East correspondent
"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 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
"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 review
"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
"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 rigour and humanity"
– Leon McCarron, author of Wounded Tigris
