Ezra Klein

I spent a lot of time over the past year looking at literature on how heat changes the individual and country-level propensity for violence. And the short answer is it goes up. But I don't think people realize how strong that relationship is. You can even find it in literature.

I spent a lot of time over the past year looking at literature on how heat changes the individual and country-level propensity for violence. And the short answer is it goes up. But I don't think people realize how strong that relationship is. You can even find it in literature.

Part of Romeo and Juliet takes place on a very hot day, and they know they shouldn't go out because they're going to go get into a fight in that kind of heat, but they do it anyway. But there are all these amazing individual experiments, too. There's this one sadistic experiment I love where it was in Phoenix, Arizona, and the researchers would get in their car and they would get to a light.

Part of Romeo and Juliet takes place on a very hot day, and they know they shouldn't go out because they're going to go get into a fight in that kind of heat, but they do it anyway. But there are all these amazing individual experiments, too. There's this one sadistic experiment I love where it was in Phoenix, Arizona, and the researchers would get in their car and they would get to a light.

And when it turned green, they just wouldn't move. And then they would time how long it took the drivers behind them to honk. And the hotter the day, the more the people behind them would honk, the angrier they would get, and they would get angry more quickly.

And when it turned green, they just wouldn't move. And then they would time how long it took the drivers behind them to honk. And the hotter the day, the more the people behind them would honk, the angrier they would get, and they would get angry more quickly.

But then you can also find this at the macro level. There's a relationship between hotter weather and civil conflict. And I've often wondered if climate change will kill more people through the wars it indirectly makes likelier than directly through the hurricanes and fires it starts.

But then you can also find this at the macro level. There's a relationship between hotter weather and civil conflict. And I've often wondered if climate change will kill more people through the wars it indirectly makes likelier than directly through the hurricanes and fires it starts.

This all gets to something people sometimes call climate authoritarianism. The idea that climate crisis will change systems not towards cooperation, but towards authoritarianism, towards closing borders. You see some of it maybe even here. The follow-up book to The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments, It's very much about how different people react to authoritarian incursions.

This all gets to something people sometimes call climate authoritarianism. The idea that climate crisis will change systems not towards cooperation, but towards authoritarianism, towards closing borders. You see some of it maybe even here. The follow-up book to The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments, It's very much about how different people react to authoritarian incursions.

So I'm curious what you've come to believe or learned about that. What makes people more open to authoritarianism? What makes them not just societally, but individually less open to it?

So I'm curious what you've come to believe or learned about that. What makes people more open to authoritarianism? What makes them not just societally, but individually less open to it?

It's also the reverse question is so interesting too. How does going along not violate your sense of self? A couple of years ago, I read this book called They Thought They Were Free, and it's just about ordinary Germans who joined the Nazi party. You know, one book can only tell you so much, but what really struck me from it is just the role of very petty resentments.

It's also the reverse question is so interesting too. How does going along not violate your sense of self? A couple of years ago, I read this book called They Thought They Were Free, and it's just about ordinary Germans who joined the Nazi party. You know, one book can only tell you so much, but what really struck me from it is just the role of very petty resentments.

You don't think too much about the global picture and you're just pissed at those condescending or richer than you people over there. And it's bit by bit. And your idea of yourself is in relationship to the people you think have already wronged you or the ways in which you feel your life has been unfair.

You don't think too much about the global picture and you're just pissed at those condescending or richer than you people over there. And it's bit by bit. And your idea of yourself is in relationship to the people you think have already wronged you or the ways in which you feel your life has been unfair.

And I mean, where it all ends up going, of course, with Nazi Germany and I'm Jewish, it is what it is. But what was so chilling about that book was how many political movements the incentives of these just ordinary members of the party could describe.

And I mean, where it all ends up going, of course, with Nazi Germany and I'm Jewish, it is what it is. But what was so chilling about that book was how many political movements the incentives of these just ordinary members of the party could describe.

You've written over the years a lot of very vivid dystopias. Why not utopias?

You've written over the years a lot of very vivid dystopias. Why not utopias?