Fatal isolation is a riveting account of the social cultural and political forces that made france so vulnerable during the historic 2003 heat wave and a cautionary tale about the dangers of urban life on an overheated planet along the way richard keller takes up deep and unsettling questions about what we can and cannot know about the recent past. Fatal isolation begins in the parisian public cemetery of thiais where roughly a hundred victims of the 2003 paris heat wave who were unclaimed by family were we use cookies to enhance your experience on our websiteby continuing to use our website you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Scholars of natural disasters willingly accept the premise that there is nothing natural about them disaster studies have long established that the extensive. Fatal isolation the devastating paris heat wave of 2003 university of chicago press 2015 university of chicago press 2015 in a cemetery on the southern outskirts of paris lie the bodies of nearly a hundred of what some have called the first casualties of global climate change. Fatal isolation the devastating paris heat wave of 2003 critcom in august of 2003 a severe heat wave descended across france leaving nearly 15000 people dead in its wake 3 like hurricane katrina or the destructive asian tsunami of 2011 frances catastrophic heat wave appears at first glance to have been a natural disaster the