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The Long Heat: Climate Politics When It’s Too Late
A scathing critique of proposals to geoengineer our way out of climate disaster, by the bestselling author of How to Blow Up a Pipline
Warming is about to hit one and a half degrees, perhaps two degrees soon after. What do we do then? In the overshoot era, schemes abound for muscular adaptation or for turning the heat down at a later date, by means of technologies for removing CO2 from the air or blocking sunlight. Such technologies are by no means they come with immense risks. Like magical promises of future redemption, they provide reasons for continuing emissions in the present. But do they also hold some potentials? Can the catastrophe be reversed, masked or simply adapted to, once it is a fact? Or will any such roundabout measure rather make things worse? This book maps the new frontlines in the struggle for a liveable planet and insists on the climate revolution long overdue. In the end, no technologies can absolve us of its tasks.
Warming is about to hit one and a half degrees, perhaps two degrees soon after. What do we do then? In the overshoot era, schemes abound for muscular adaptation or for turning the heat down at a later date, by means of technologies for removing CO2 from the air or blocking sunlight. Such technologies are by no means they come with immense risks. Like magical promises of future redemption, they provide reasons for continuing emissions in the present. But do they also hold some potentials? Can the catastrophe be reversed, masked or simply adapted to, once it is a fact? Or will any such roundabout measure rather make things worse? This book maps the new frontlines in the struggle for a liveable planet and insists on the climate revolution long overdue. In the end, no technologies can absolve us of its tasks.
656 pages, Hardcover
Published October 7, 2025
About the author
Andreas Malm
32 books493 followersAndreas Malm teaches Human Ecology at Lund University, Sweden. He is the author, with Shora Esmailian, of Iran on the Brink: Rising Workers and Threats of War and of Fossil Capital, which won the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 13, 2025
The Long Heat, following on from Overshoot, form what the authors describe as a Marxist IPCC Report over 1000 pages. Wim Carlton and Andreas Malm have provided the most comprehensive overview of the state of our current response to climate breakdown. Once again we see that vulgar Marxism is the best outline of reality. Essential reading for anyone paying attention to the most important thing happening in the world.
December 15, 2025
This, together with their earlier 'Overshoot', are milestones in environmentalist and eco-socialist literature. While we're clearly entering the early catastrophic phase of the climate crisis, Malm & Carton give a comprehensive analysis of the two ways of implementing the overshoot ideology (which was the subject of their earlier work of the same title), namely carbon capture through various means, and geoengineering.
Both these technologies serve the capitalist interests mainly by being psychological diversions from the obvious and scientifically mandated need to mitigate emissions - i.e. dismantle the whole fossil industry. But they are also deeply entwined with that very same industry, in such a way that implementation could also entrench the industry even more.
Since we haven't done anything substantial to avert the coming calamity, we're entering a phase where mitigation by itself won't suffice, and adaption will be a necessity. Malm & Carton argue that carbon removal, despite its flaws, will be a necessary compliment to mitigation, while geoengineering is something that should be resisted at all costs, for the side effects and risks are unfathomably great.
On a more formalistic note: even though the subject matter is inherently bleak, the writing is of great value and hearkens back to the better combative marxist literature from yesteryear.
Both these technologies serve the capitalist interests mainly by being psychological diversions from the obvious and scientifically mandated need to mitigate emissions - i.e. dismantle the whole fossil industry. But they are also deeply entwined with that very same industry, in such a way that implementation could also entrench the industry even more.
Since we haven't done anything substantial to avert the coming calamity, we're entering a phase where mitigation by itself won't suffice, and adaption will be a necessity. Malm & Carton argue that carbon removal, despite its flaws, will be a necessary compliment to mitigation, while geoengineering is something that should be resisted at all costs, for the side effects and risks are unfathomably great.
On a more formalistic note: even though the subject matter is inherently bleak, the writing is of great value and hearkens back to the better combative marxist literature from yesteryear.
January 25, 2026
Doooom, dooOOOOOoooom I tell you!
November 15, 2025
This book is a fabulous follow-up to Overshoot, as it covered all of the things I thought were missing from Overshoot. Additionally, I love how this book takes the ideas outlined in its historically-focused precursor and projects them to the future. I didn’t like The Long Heat quite as much as Overshoot, since there were some parts that I thought were a bit dull (and long), but like Overshoot, many of the ideas and political theory it discusses are incredibly eye-opening and important to understanding the current terrain of climate politics at a deep level. If you have read Overshoot, you would be doing yourself a disservice by not reading this. And if you haven’t read Overshoot, start now!
April 25, 2026
Removal makes little sense before addition has ceased. Slowing down the cessation by siphoning away resources makes none at all.
What kept me reading this massive tome:
1. a mix of no-bullshit commentary on the inexorable logic of fossil fuel exploitation that leads to overshooting 1.5C temperature rise, which devilishly at the same time reduces our ability to eventually pull-back below (regardless of the amount of faith we have in future potential of removal/mitigation to keep us on our current track)
2. review of the technologies in the running that promise to do this, identification of some of the key figures involved, and lastly the inevitable geopolitical implications of their usage
3. a theoretical analysis drawing on Marx and later Frankfurt Schoolers who I have not read first-hand, but can appreciate the continued relevance, in particular the intriguing ideas of late value form and exchange-value -- see passage below.
The story continues with the blockade of Hormuz...
There is not enough planet Earth to first turn it inside out and then turn it outside in again. Available resources do not allow for removal of the total aggregate of CO2 from the fossil fuels in stock. Instead, removal should, for all the reasons we examined in the appendix of caveats, be conceived as a restricted practice, hemmed in on all sides by limitations – of energy, of land, of subsurface storage sites, of everything needed to get underway – more in the nature of advanced surgery than basic hygiene. A question then arises: what are we going to use it for? To what end should the precious removal capacity be deployed? If negative emissions technologies can indeed attain consequential scale, should they be pressed into the service of life extension for fossil capital? Although they may serve that purpose already, even before they have entered the material world, the imminent risk is that, upon actual entry, they will be corralled into business-as-usual, as in DAC plants for enhanced oil recovery. Removal will then be negated into its opposite. This would be in accordance with the universal law of capital devouring everything potentially good and excreting it as something actually bad. Here the most egregious instance might be the use of removal to re-animate fossil fuel companies in general and enhanced oil recovery in particular, but there is something broader at work, which we might call late value form. In the overshoot conjuncture, capital seeks to press negative emissions technologies into the production of exchange-value. Against it stands any interest in deploying them for the use-value of reversal.
What kept me reading this massive tome:
1. a mix of no-bullshit commentary on the inexorable logic of fossil fuel exploitation that leads to overshooting 1.5C temperature rise, which devilishly at the same time reduces our ability to eventually pull-back below (regardless of the amount of faith we have in future potential of removal/mitigation to keep us on our current track)
2. review of the technologies in the running that promise to do this, identification of some of the key figures involved, and lastly the inevitable geopolitical implications of their usage
3. a theoretical analysis drawing on Marx and later Frankfurt Schoolers who I have not read first-hand, but can appreciate the continued relevance, in particular the intriguing ideas of late value form and exchange-value -- see passage below.
The story continues with the blockade of Hormuz...
There is not enough planet Earth to first turn it inside out and then turn it outside in again. Available resources do not allow for removal of the total aggregate of CO2 from the fossil fuels in stock. Instead, removal should, for all the reasons we examined in the appendix of caveats, be conceived as a restricted practice, hemmed in on all sides by limitations – of energy, of land, of subsurface storage sites, of everything needed to get underway – more in the nature of advanced surgery than basic hygiene. A question then arises: what are we going to use it for? To what end should the precious removal capacity be deployed? If negative emissions technologies can indeed attain consequential scale, should they be pressed into the service of life extension for fossil capital? Although they may serve that purpose already, even before they have entered the material world, the imminent risk is that, upon actual entry, they will be corralled into business-as-usual, as in DAC plants for enhanced oil recovery. Removal will then be negated into its opposite. This would be in accordance with the universal law of capital devouring everything potentially good and excreting it as something actually bad. Here the most egregious instance might be the use of removal to re-animate fossil fuel companies in general and enhanced oil recovery in particular, but there is something broader at work, which we might call late value form. In the overshoot conjuncture, capital seeks to press negative emissions technologies into the production of exchange-value. Against it stands any interest in deploying them for the use-value of reversal.
April 29, 2026
VOTO: 4.5
PRO: ricchezza dell'analisi, approccio olistico
CONTRO: digressioni filosofiche/psicologiche superficiali
Seguito di Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown, continua l'analisi dell'ideologia dell'overshoot, focalizzandosi su tre macro-soluzioni: adattamento, geo-ingegneria e cattura e stoccaggio del carbonio.
Il filo che le tiene unite è evidentemente la malcelata aspirazione a preservare lo status quo, ossia l'estrazione ed il consumo di combustibili fossili, rimandando o addirittura escludendo in toto qualsiasi azione di mitigazione volta a ridurre le emissioni di anidride carbonica. Gli autori analizzano le soluzioni più comuni in ciascuna categoria, non solo dal punto di vista strettamente tecnologico, ma anche politico, economico e sociale.
Ne emerge un ritratto estremamente pragmatico, che pur sottolineando le potenzialità di svariate tecnologie - chi più chi meno - ne evidenzia altrettanto i limiti politici, economici e sociali. Nessuna tecnologia infatti sembra in grado di funzionare su scala planetaria senza effetti collaterali più o meno gravi, in grado talvolta di aggravare la crisi anziché risolverla. Nel complesso sembrano tentativi maldestri di curare i sintomi anziché la malattia.
Tra i rischi geopolitici legati alla geo-ingegneria (chi decide tempi, dosi e modalità di erogazione ha il potere di alterare a proprio piacimento il clima mondiale) ai limiti di scalabilità e gli effetti collaterali delle tecnologie di cattura e stoccaggio del carbonio (consumo di terreni, acqua e fertilizzanti nel caso delle BECCS e difficoltà di stoccaggio del carbonio nel caso delle DAC), l'unico approccio possibile sembra una combinazione pragmatica dei vari approcci, tenendo conto dei rispettivi limiti ed effetti collaterali, combinata ad una cruciale e decisa azione di mitigazione, capace di scardinare una volta per tutte il dominio dei combustibili fossili nella nostra vita e nell'economia globale.
Si poteva tranquillamente evitare qualche superficiale considerazione di natura filosofica e psicologica, ma quest'opera costituisce assieme alla precedente un caposaldo del moderno pensiero ambientalista. Da leggere per capire davvero quali soluzioni sono davvero a portata di mano e riconoscere che la fattibilità tecnica è solo uno dei tanti fattori in grado di determinare la reale efficacia delle soluzioni proposte alla crisi climatica.
PRO: ricchezza dell'analisi, approccio olistico
CONTRO: digressioni filosofiche/psicologiche superficiali
Seguito di Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown, continua l'analisi dell'ideologia dell'overshoot, focalizzandosi su tre macro-soluzioni: adattamento, geo-ingegneria e cattura e stoccaggio del carbonio.
Il filo che le tiene unite è evidentemente la malcelata aspirazione a preservare lo status quo, ossia l'estrazione ed il consumo di combustibili fossili, rimandando o addirittura escludendo in toto qualsiasi azione di mitigazione volta a ridurre le emissioni di anidride carbonica. Gli autori analizzano le soluzioni più comuni in ciascuna categoria, non solo dal punto di vista strettamente tecnologico, ma anche politico, economico e sociale.
Ne emerge un ritratto estremamente pragmatico, che pur sottolineando le potenzialità di svariate tecnologie - chi più chi meno - ne evidenzia altrettanto i limiti politici, economici e sociali. Nessuna tecnologia infatti sembra in grado di funzionare su scala planetaria senza effetti collaterali più o meno gravi, in grado talvolta di aggravare la crisi anziché risolverla. Nel complesso sembrano tentativi maldestri di curare i sintomi anziché la malattia.
Tra i rischi geopolitici legati alla geo-ingegneria (chi decide tempi, dosi e modalità di erogazione ha il potere di alterare a proprio piacimento il clima mondiale) ai limiti di scalabilità e gli effetti collaterali delle tecnologie di cattura e stoccaggio del carbonio (consumo di terreni, acqua e fertilizzanti nel caso delle BECCS e difficoltà di stoccaggio del carbonio nel caso delle DAC), l'unico approccio possibile sembra una combinazione pragmatica dei vari approcci, tenendo conto dei rispettivi limiti ed effetti collaterali, combinata ad una cruciale e decisa azione di mitigazione, capace di scardinare una volta per tutte il dominio dei combustibili fossili nella nostra vita e nell'economia globale.
Si poteva tranquillamente evitare qualche superficiale considerazione di natura filosofica e psicologica, ma quest'opera costituisce assieme alla precedente un caposaldo del moderno pensiero ambientalista. Da leggere per capire davvero quali soluzioni sono davvero a portata di mano e riconoscere che la fattibilità tecnica è solo uno dei tanti fattori in grado di determinare la reale efficacia delle soluzioni proposte alla crisi climatica.
February 19, 2026
We're fucked. I'm not sure that's too surprising a conclusion for many/most people, but I do think it's important to use honest, if not exactly scientific, terminology. The Long Heat is a book ostensibly about politics, but I didn't walk out of it with a grand plan for action. This isn't How to Blow Up a Pipeline-style activism, but instead a scholarly and scientific breakdown of the mess we are in.
The most interesting part, to me, was the early chapter on scientific thinking being beholden to economic and Enlightment-era mindsets. The "economic way of thinking" and the Whiggish view of progress extolled by philosophers in the early days of the Industrial Revolution developed a public view of science that is smooth; to wit, even though no person that you know practices "consumption smoothing," economic models (with few exceptions) are built on the idea that you and everyone you know are making decisions today with the idea that your consumption will be silky smooth and consistent over the next 30+ years of your life. To be that confidently naive!
This same smooth, neat view extended to early concepts of geography, biology, and climate. We know now, of course, that geography (despite the long time spans) is not a smooth and orderly decay of rocks; evolution comes in fits and starts and spurts; and, most relevant to this book, that increasing CO2 into the atmosphere doesn't follow a neat upward line that can just be turned back down.
We know, of course, that the smooth models of climate change adored by economists only accounts for CO2 emissions from factories and cars and etc, and do not account for the fact that melting arctic ice releases buried trees and animals and plants, and their rapid decay increases CO2 emissions at an exponential rate that is not factored into any mainstream model (i.e. we're fucked).
The link made to Leninist way of thinking was intellectually interesting, although I can imagine the more science-minded people rolling their eyes at it. But the science-minded people have much to roll their eyes at here, mostly the authors' detailed recounting of the braindead, unhelpful, capitalist attempts to hang lanterns above the Amazon or dump iron into the ocean or any of the other hundreds of entrepreneurial attempts to do literally anything other than stop using fossil fuels.
You won't walk out of here knowing what to do when it's too late, but at least you'll know why it's too late.
The most interesting part, to me, was the early chapter on scientific thinking being beholden to economic and Enlightment-era mindsets. The "economic way of thinking" and the Whiggish view of progress extolled by philosophers in the early days of the Industrial Revolution developed a public view of science that is smooth; to wit, even though no person that you know practices "consumption smoothing," economic models (with few exceptions) are built on the idea that you and everyone you know are making decisions today with the idea that your consumption will be silky smooth and consistent over the next 30+ years of your life. To be that confidently naive!
This same smooth, neat view extended to early concepts of geography, biology, and climate. We know now, of course, that geography (despite the long time spans) is not a smooth and orderly decay of rocks; evolution comes in fits and starts and spurts; and, most relevant to this book, that increasing CO2 into the atmosphere doesn't follow a neat upward line that can just be turned back down.
We know, of course, that the smooth models of climate change adored by economists only accounts for CO2 emissions from factories and cars and etc, and do not account for the fact that melting arctic ice releases buried trees and animals and plants, and their rapid decay increases CO2 emissions at an exponential rate that is not factored into any mainstream model (i.e. we're fucked).
The link made to Leninist way of thinking was intellectually interesting, although I can imagine the more science-minded people rolling their eyes at it. But the science-minded people have much to roll their eyes at here, mostly the authors' detailed recounting of the braindead, unhelpful, capitalist attempts to hang lanterns above the Amazon or dump iron into the ocean or any of the other hundreds of entrepreneurial attempts to do literally anything other than stop using fossil fuels.
You won't walk out of here knowing what to do when it's too late, but at least you'll know why it's too late.
January 23, 2026
The Long Heat: Climate Politics When It's Too Late, by Andreas Malm and Wim Carton, is a sequel to Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown. These are instant classics -- indispensable to anyone interested in the climate crisis. In June, I interviewed Malm (https://proteanmag.com/2025/06/03/unc...) and we discussed, among other things, both books. Here is what he told us about The Long Heat:
"it’s at least partly entertaining. There are a lot of jokes in this book, or attempts at jokes. We’ll see if they work. They mostly relate to shit, poop, excrement—this is a major theme in the book. So, it’s a book that tries to combine elements of the kind that you mentioned together with humor and sarcasm. We’ll see if it works, but it’s meant to be what we sometimes call a Marxist and readable IPCC report. These are the two attributes, among many others, that distinguish our book from the real thing because an IPCC report is not Marxist and it certainly isn’t readable! But here our attempt is to make it readable, with metaphors and punchlines and Marxist theory and humor and things like that."
"in The Long Heat [...] We will have one chapter trying to sketch a Freudo-Marxist theory of geoengineering, as well as a long chapter in which we argue that denial of the climate crisis has been absolutely fundamental to the progression of this crisis—that without system-wide denial of this crisis, it would have actually come to a stop at a certain point."
"In view of my own work, I see The Long Heat, the book that Wim and I are publishing this year, as the end of a cycle that began with Fossil Capital. My feeling is I don’t want to write more about contemporary climate politics. I’ve said what I can say, contributed what I can contribute. Now I want to do real historical work instead. Of course, the world is burning and it’s burning so fast, so it’s difficult to say that I’m going to be able to look away from it and just look back at the past, but this is my personal ambition for the next decade or two."
December 9, 2025
The second part of this project is as must-read as the first. There's an incredible breadth of research contained in this volume and it is hard not be at least a little in awe of this achievement.
What sours it for me - without going into details here - is that the theoretical plane seems to be much less pronounced here. Theory is often used in ways that seem somewhat banal and there is not much of a dialectic between the studied material and the theory used to used to comprehend it. So much so that the latter seems reduced to an explanatory function, where a few quotations are meant to stand in for actual theoretical development. For this reason this volume is best read as a work of technological/environmental history - which is perfectly fine, and it does this job tremendously well.
Also, as a researcher that has been working with psychoanalysis for years and actually is in analysis, I cannot help, but add that Malm's (I presume) knowledge of psychoanalytic theory was/is not developed enough to make of it a theoretical approach to the studied problem. The idea to approach geoengineering through the lens of repression is completely fine and actually works very well at some level. I do have a quarrel with the way it's done here, though. The use of psychoanalytic theory is completely haphazard and messy - to the point where some of his readings of Freud are just plain wrong, as is his understanding of some psychoanalytic concepts (such as those of denial and repression and their interrelation, which drags down the chapter on this horribly). For crying out loud, the point of the dream of the burning child is completely missed here and the significance of it absolutely misread. This is not coming from the point of view of my own chosen branch of psychoanalysis neither. I do not think it is fair of the author who only has a tenuous grasp on this theory to critique how others understand it - even if the judgement is correct - much less Freud himself.
Still, xoxo Andreas.
What sours it for me - without going into details here - is that the theoretical plane seems to be much less pronounced here. Theory is often used in ways that seem somewhat banal and there is not much of a dialectic between the studied material and the theory used to used to comprehend it. So much so that the latter seems reduced to an explanatory function, where a few quotations are meant to stand in for actual theoretical development. For this reason this volume is best read as a work of technological/environmental history - which is perfectly fine, and it does this job tremendously well.
Also, as a researcher that has been working with psychoanalysis for years and actually is in analysis, I cannot help, but add that Malm's (I presume) knowledge of psychoanalytic theory was/is not developed enough to make of it a theoretical approach to the studied problem. The idea to approach geoengineering through the lens of repression is completely fine and actually works very well at some level. I do have a quarrel with the way it's done here, though. The use of psychoanalytic theory is completely haphazard and messy - to the point where some of his readings of Freud are just plain wrong, as is his understanding of some psychoanalytic concepts (such as those of denial and repression and their interrelation, which drags down the chapter on this horribly). For crying out loud, the point of the dream of the burning child is completely missed here and the significance of it absolutely misread. This is not coming from the point of view of my own chosen branch of psychoanalysis neither. I do not think it is fair of the author who only has a tenuous grasp on this theory to critique how others understand it - even if the judgement is correct - much less Freud himself.
Still, xoxo Andreas.
January 31, 2026
Tillsammans med "Overshoot" den första boken i denna tvådelade serie, så utgör detta bland det bästa jag läst om epoken efter 1,5C. Malm o Carton är radikala i sin kritik, men analyserar allt konkret och sakligt. Boken avhandlar de tre nya fronter som öppnas upp när utsläppsminskingarna för att nå 1,5-2C misslyckats:
A) Adaption,
B) negativa utsläpp
C) geoengineering.
Summan av kardemumman: de kommande årtiondena kommer vara extremt turbulenta, men det är inte kört för att vi passerar 1,5C. Den nära framtiden lär förmodligen bjuda på enormt lidande och ett mobiliserade på alla tre ovan fronter. Här finns det mycket att sätta tänderna i för oss revolutionärer! Enligt författarna måste klimatrörelsens historiska uppgift då, likt tidigare, alltid i första hand vara att stoppa förbränning av fossila bränslen. Utan ett fokus på denna "ursprungliga front" kommer till sist alla andra fronter falla (jorden faller, blir helt obeboelig) En take jag tycker om.
Det som var mest givande var dels att läsa om Direct Air Capture (den teknologi Malm o Carton hyllar högst), likt annan negativ utsläppsteknologi (något som faktiskt ingav hopp) likaså den sista delen där författarna förklarar hur fucked up geoengineering är, och hur det passar perfekt ihop med fortsatt utökad användning av fossila bränslen, samtidigt som det är teknologin med störst potential att användas av dagens Imperier.
I denna bok och i Overshoot tecknas även en mycket fin teori över VARFÖR kapitalet är oförmögen att sluta förbränna fossila bränslen, och hur alla teknologier som ska minska problemet (förnybar el, negativa utsläpp etc) kommer misslyckas så länge politisk förstörelse av fossilt kapital ej sker. En teoretisering som följt Malm sen Fossil Capital men i dessa böcker finner en utvidgad form som är väldigt användbar för att förstå vår nuvarande tid och dess argumenterbart största politiska utmaning.
A) Adaption,
B) negativa utsläpp
C) geoengineering.
Summan av kardemumman: de kommande årtiondena kommer vara extremt turbulenta, men det är inte kört för att vi passerar 1,5C. Den nära framtiden lär förmodligen bjuda på enormt lidande och ett mobiliserade på alla tre ovan fronter. Här finns det mycket att sätta tänderna i för oss revolutionärer! Enligt författarna måste klimatrörelsens historiska uppgift då, likt tidigare, alltid i första hand vara att stoppa förbränning av fossila bränslen. Utan ett fokus på denna "ursprungliga front" kommer till sist alla andra fronter falla (jorden faller, blir helt obeboelig) En take jag tycker om.
Det som var mest givande var dels att läsa om Direct Air Capture (den teknologi Malm o Carton hyllar högst), likt annan negativ utsläppsteknologi (något som faktiskt ingav hopp) likaså den sista delen där författarna förklarar hur fucked up geoengineering är, och hur det passar perfekt ihop med fortsatt utökad användning av fossila bränslen, samtidigt som det är teknologin med störst potential att användas av dagens Imperier.
I denna bok och i Overshoot tecknas även en mycket fin teori över VARFÖR kapitalet är oförmögen att sluta förbränna fossila bränslen, och hur alla teknologier som ska minska problemet (förnybar el, negativa utsläpp etc) kommer misslyckas så länge politisk förstörelse av fossilt kapital ej sker. En teoretisering som följt Malm sen Fossil Capital men i dessa böcker finner en utvidgad form som är väldigt användbar för att förstå vår nuvarande tid och dess argumenterbart största politiska utmaning.
January 11, 2026
An intriguing critique of carbon removal, carbon offsetting and geoengineering. The direct critique of these technologies takes place in the middle part of the book, pages 111 to 343.
There is a searing attack on Direct Air Capture (DAC), Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture (BECCS), carbon offsetting, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and Geoengineering. The absurdity of geoengineering and DAC are explained in a detailed analysis based off their philosophical underpinnings as 'substutionist' technologies that give an illusion that dilutes the need for mitigation. The analysis quotes the number of companies that have been founded in this space and by and large remain ideas that have been not been deployed in reality.
However, there is a draining repetition and overuse of analogies, dialectics and theories to explain the reason for the emergence of these technological approaches. This means the book can sometimes read as a "cli-fi" novel (indeed it quotes such novels regulalry), which means it constantly moves into tangents on the extent of climatic breakdown and random analogies that aren't needed to prove the original point. Many times this is done to visualise the dystopian nature of technologies like geoengineering, but this could've been done without the layers of contextualising and ideological expansionism.
Some of my favourite quotes from the book include:
"But it seems the earth might have to be wreathed in a metal crown for mass DAC to do its duty" (in reference to what it would take for DAC to actually lead to negative emissions)
"Not only did removal of this kind weigh as lightly as emissions from fossil fuels as a feather against an oil platform" (in reference to carbon offsets that Microsoft holds)
"Do not rock the boat, and if, at some point, you must jump, the geoengineers will have the right equipment to keep you breathing"
There is a searing attack on Direct Air Capture (DAC), Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture (BECCS), carbon offsetting, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and Geoengineering. The absurdity of geoengineering and DAC are explained in a detailed analysis based off their philosophical underpinnings as 'substutionist' technologies that give an illusion that dilutes the need for mitigation. The analysis quotes the number of companies that have been founded in this space and by and large remain ideas that have been not been deployed in reality.
However, there is a draining repetition and overuse of analogies, dialectics and theories to explain the reason for the emergence of these technological approaches. This means the book can sometimes read as a "cli-fi" novel (indeed it quotes such novels regulalry), which means it constantly moves into tangents on the extent of climatic breakdown and random analogies that aren't needed to prove the original point. Many times this is done to visualise the dystopian nature of technologies like geoengineering, but this could've been done without the layers of contextualising and ideological expansionism.
Some of my favourite quotes from the book include:
"But it seems the earth might have to be wreathed in a metal crown for mass DAC to do its duty" (in reference to what it would take for DAC to actually lead to negative emissions)
"Not only did removal of this kind weigh as lightly as emissions from fossil fuels as a feather against an oil platform" (in reference to carbon offsets that Microsoft holds)
"Do not rock the boat, and if, at some point, you must jump, the geoengineers will have the right equipment to keep you breathing"
January 9, 2026
The Long Heat: Climate Politics When It’s Too Late is a forceful, unflinching interrogation of the fantasies currently shaping climate policy in the age of overshoot. Andreas Malm and Wim Carton dismantle the growing faith in geoengineering and carbon removal technologies, exposing how promises of future technical salvation function as political excuses for continued emissions in the present.
What makes this book so compelling is its clarity and urgency. Rather than rejecting technology outright, Malm and Carton rigorously examine its risks, contradictions, and ideological uses, showing how techno-fixes can deepen injustice and delay the structural transformations that a livable planet requires. Scholarly yet incendiary, The Long Heat maps the emerging frontlines of climate politics and insists that no amount of technological maneuvering can substitute for the long-overdue task of collective, revolutionary change.
What makes this book so compelling is its clarity and urgency. Rather than rejecting technology outright, Malm and Carton rigorously examine its risks, contradictions, and ideological uses, showing how techno-fixes can deepen injustice and delay the structural transformations that a livable planet requires. Scholarly yet incendiary, The Long Heat maps the emerging frontlines of climate politics and insists that no amount of technological maneuvering can substitute for the long-overdue task of collective, revolutionary change.
March 8, 2026
Hands down Carton and Malm, with both Overshoot and The Long Heat, have written two of the best books on global warming, which also serve to display very clearly for all the Hannah Ritchie types the failure of capitalism, albeit without going far enough in revealing the deadly impacts in store for us all based on our current trajectory. They marvellously catalogue many of the failures of those in power, and the failure of that power structure itself, to adequately respond to global warming, but their background as social scientists seems to have let them down to some extent on the (physical) science. Overshoot begins with a mesmerizing review of the failure of exploitative capitalism to make good on the clear need to keep fossils in the ground as the fossil industry, aided by corrupt politics, entered a “bonanza” of post-COVID energy development that is still ongoing. Additionally, it provides a masterful and harrowing compilation of the weather disasters of recent years that many in developed nations will likely have not experienced or even been aware of.
The Long Heat takes up where Overshoot left off, answering the question Where do we go from here, now that we have screwed our chances of keeping warming to the (arbitrarily chosen) Paris targets? They do an excellent job of digging through the history of suggested responses to warming by illustrious scientists and the evil William Nordhaus, the mainstream economist who almost singlehandedly acted to allow his miserable discipline to throw a wrench into it. Unknown to many, as the dialogue has shifted in recent years, the efforts of these original climate warriors was to AVOID making any changes to the status quo, avoid having to end fossil burning and avoid fessing up to the failures of capitalism-as-we-know-it. Those same old-timers, having seen the years go by and the temperatures continue to rise, are joined by the more recent additions to the effort (most of whom however will not utter a word against capitalism) in stating clearly that proposed methods of adaptation and mitigation going beyond mere abstinence from fossils is needed, one way or the other. Many current proponents of such methods, which include carbon dioxide removal in its many varieties, as well as fast cooling strategies like stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, cirrus cloud thinning, surface-based albedo enhancement and others, have never believed that these strategies are envisioned to REPLACE a need to end fossil burning. They merely recognize that something additional is required now that we have wasted 50 years doing research and trying to convince climate deniers and business people that this is actually a real problem. Carton and Malm make no mention of this, seemingly painting all proponents of any strategy to fight warming that goes beyond decarbonization with the same brush.
Unfortunately the authors miss some crucial science. Specifically, they seem unaware that the IPCC’s estimates of future warming are laughably optimistic, such as that by 2100 temperatures will only have risen by 2-2.5C above preindustrial, when in fact we will be at 3C already by 2050, and at 4C by 2100. This makes a MASSIVE difference across the board. While their criticism of the original reasoning for the development of carbon removal and the realistic effectiveness of all proposed methods of carbon removal are correct, I don't think they highlight enough how ultimately dependent on SOME type of response above and beyond emissions reductions we have become, whether it is an as yet unknown carbon removal, or some form of solar radiation management. Additionally, in the conclusion they suggest that direct air capture (DAC) may one day be useful when in fact it is a scam in a way that some other CDR proposals (reforestation being the best example) despite also not being scalable to fit the required task, are not. Our resources will be so strapped in coming decades, with shortages in fresh water, energy and the basic materials DAC are thirsty for, that the idea to construct the literally millions of DAC plants envisioned, when we will need the water to drink and for irrigation and the energy for everything else seems not to occur to them.
It seems that their primary interest has been to establish the failure of capitalism and the need for it to be replaced, which any fool can see, although they suggest no replacement. Despite quoting Marx and Lenin ad nauseum, they don’t suggest communism or socialism or heavily-guardrailed defanged capitalism or degrowth or anything else. Perhaps that is yet to come from them.
The Long Heat takes up where Overshoot left off, answering the question Where do we go from here, now that we have screwed our chances of keeping warming to the (arbitrarily chosen) Paris targets? They do an excellent job of digging through the history of suggested responses to warming by illustrious scientists and the evil William Nordhaus, the mainstream economist who almost singlehandedly acted to allow his miserable discipline to throw a wrench into it. Unknown to many, as the dialogue has shifted in recent years, the efforts of these original climate warriors was to AVOID making any changes to the status quo, avoid having to end fossil burning and avoid fessing up to the failures of capitalism-as-we-know-it. Those same old-timers, having seen the years go by and the temperatures continue to rise, are joined by the more recent additions to the effort (most of whom however will not utter a word against capitalism) in stating clearly that proposed methods of adaptation and mitigation going beyond mere abstinence from fossils is needed, one way or the other. Many current proponents of such methods, which include carbon dioxide removal in its many varieties, as well as fast cooling strategies like stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, cirrus cloud thinning, surface-based albedo enhancement and others, have never believed that these strategies are envisioned to REPLACE a need to end fossil burning. They merely recognize that something additional is required now that we have wasted 50 years doing research and trying to convince climate deniers and business people that this is actually a real problem. Carton and Malm make no mention of this, seemingly painting all proponents of any strategy to fight warming that goes beyond decarbonization with the same brush.
Unfortunately the authors miss some crucial science. Specifically, they seem unaware that the IPCC’s estimates of future warming are laughably optimistic, such as that by 2100 temperatures will only have risen by 2-2.5C above preindustrial, when in fact we will be at 3C already by 2050, and at 4C by 2100. This makes a MASSIVE difference across the board. While their criticism of the original reasoning for the development of carbon removal and the realistic effectiveness of all proposed methods of carbon removal are correct, I don't think they highlight enough how ultimately dependent on SOME type of response above and beyond emissions reductions we have become, whether it is an as yet unknown carbon removal, or some form of solar radiation management. Additionally, in the conclusion they suggest that direct air capture (DAC) may one day be useful when in fact it is a scam in a way that some other CDR proposals (reforestation being the best example) despite also not being scalable to fit the required task, are not. Our resources will be so strapped in coming decades, with shortages in fresh water, energy and the basic materials DAC are thirsty for, that the idea to construct the literally millions of DAC plants envisioned, when we will need the water to drink and for irrigation and the energy for everything else seems not to occur to them.
It seems that their primary interest has been to establish the failure of capitalism and the need for it to be replaced, which any fool can see, although they suggest no replacement. Despite quoting Marx and Lenin ad nauseum, they don’t suggest communism or socialism or heavily-guardrailed defanged capitalism or degrowth or anything else. Perhaps that is yet to come from them.
April 5, 2026
The overall argument of the book is one I agree with: that capitalism is incompatible with dealing with the climate crisis, and that a politics of militant climate liberation focused on massive and immediate emissions cuts are necessary. The book had quite a bit of interesting data regarding various negative emissions schemes, but it also had a some noticeable weak points. The writings on natural science & the "dialectics of nature" definitely had some of the hallmarks of a Marxist approaching biology & physics topics from the outside, a few cited statistics and figures were exaggerated or not properly contextualized, and the references to psychoanalysis felt like more or less surface-level comparisons between Freudian concepts and processes taking place in politics.
Still, I think it's worth a read for criticisms of liberal-optimist and technocratic approaches to climate change.
Still, I think it's worth a read for criticisms of liberal-optimist and technocratic approaches to climate change.
December 25, 2025
Referenced the book extensively in this blog post https://medium.com/@baddeo/o-mission-...
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