a reluctant activist is drawn into a climate movement that spirals beyond his control
a reluctant activist is drawn into a climate movement that spirals beyond his control
When the government proscribes his activist group, marking them as terrorists, David isn’t sure how he ended up here. He never meant to be an activist. He just wanted to impress a woman.
Now his small circle of friends argues over leaflets and chants while the world outside is drowning, burning, and breaking apart. Floods sweep through towns in Europe, wildfires choke whole continents, and record heatwaves push cities to the edge of survival. Every month brings another headline that feels like the end of the world — yet David spends his time holding banners in supermarket car parks and drinking tea at Mrs Caldwell’s safe house.
The crackdown leaves the group fractured. Simon, steady and calm, leads them towards safer, smaller actions. Amanda, a billionaire environmentalist, uses her money and influence to push harder from the outside. And Maaike — the radical Dutch activist who first pulled David in — has vanished, leaving only rumours of violent new tactics in her name.
The story unfolds against the rising heat of the planet itself — from 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, where we are today, to the terrifying possibility of 2.5 °C. As the temperature climbs, so do the stakes: for David, for the movement, and for the world.
Darkly funny, painfully raw, and unflinching in its vision of a climate unravelling, Temperature Rising is a novel about chaos, compromise, and the uneasy space between doing nothing and doing enough.
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