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Let me acknowledge, right up front, that in this ghastly era of anthropogenic global warming I combusted a whole bunch of fossil fuel in order to descend from the cool green sanctuary of the Colorado Rockies, where I’m blessed to reside, and cross the hot, dry, fiercely sunburned interior West. My destination was the kiln of the Mojave Desert and, sequestered within that immensity of thirst, a line on the thermometer: 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Or perhaps worse. It depended on where my best friend Sean suggested we camp.

Was this a vacation? A gross display of privilege? According to the CDC, extreme heat waves cause . Granted, I do not belong to the especially endangered demographic groups: infant, senior, unhoused, impoverished, employed outdoors. The list is tragic and long. But trust me, the trip wasn’t idle amusement. I felt compelled to make raw somatic contact with our new and thoroughly dismaying climate regime, to face the faceless temperatures of the 21st century.

Sean is a social-studies teacher in Las Vegas who spends much of his summer break driving random dirt roads, exploring the desiccated, dust-choked hinterlands of Nevada and California. His style is the opposite of athletic, unless geography paired with existential contemplation constitutes a sport. He pokes around, parks the Hyundai, plants a parasol, eats and drinks, hikes a mile or three at dusk, counts shooting stars, sleeps, moves on. The very emptiness and quiet are his activity, the elemental place—overwhelming in a dozen different ways—his passion.

Chatting on the phone in early July, he informed me that the mercury in his apartment in North Vegas was registering 120 degrees, a record for the city. “A/C shut off yesterday,” he said. “Kicked back on this morning. The grid…a surge…my unit…I dunno. In any case, I’m heading out for 24 hours.” Air temps at Furnace Creek, in Death Valley National Park, were approaching the world’s highest reliable measurement of 130 degrees, made there in 2021. “I bet it’ll only be teens in the Mojave Preserve,” he continued. “And single digits or lower at night.”

This omission of the “hundred” prior to “teens” and “single digits” reminded me of how folks at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, where I once worked, eschew the phrase “below zero” because, quite simply, “above zero” doesn’t occur in that part of Antarctica. I’d confronted (negative) 80 degrees during my stint on The Ice and handled it pretty well. In fact, I’d relished the challenge of strenuous labor, the steady, drudging effort that pumps blood to fingers and toes, lungs and brain. Our apocalyptic present is another matter. Strenuous labor is potentially lethal and the steady, drudging effort is that of patience: hunkering in the shade, trying your damnedest not to budge.

Sean isn’t exactly a fan of the heat, but he accepts its authority, and this allows him to briefly sneak outside even when doing so is deemed reckless, or at least exceedingly unpleasant. We decided I should visit him ASAP to join one of his 24-hour excursions into the reality that almost nobody is eager to embrace—call it our current and future home.

I wrote an email to my parents in Vermont after hanging up the phone, explaining the plan, tacking on a paragraph about anxiety and electrolytes. My dad replied: “Do be careful as we bubble at 108 degrees.” I was unfamiliar with the verb “to bubble” in the context of human physiology, but caught his drift. My mom, whose hairdresser claims I am responsible for the grays she is paid to dye blond, cut to the chase with her usual no-nonsense wisdom: “You’ve never experienced that kind of heat. I don’t think we are meant to experience that kind of heat. I’ll just say this—show it the utmost respect.”