Today’s Notable Quotable: Heat & The New Abnormal

Today’s notable quote comes from an interview with Jeff Goodell, author of The Heat Will Kill You First, hosted by Shumita Bass on Apple News in Conversation.

“What happens to our bodies in these kinds of extreme-heat situations is predictable and horrific … When your body temperature gets to around 104, 105 degrees, which is only 6 or 7 degrees above normal, your body actually starts melting from within. And the cell membranes around all of your cells actually begin to melt. The proteins that control much of the cellular functions within these cells, which have these intricate folds that determine what they do, they begin to unfold. And your body starts unraveling from within. That’s why sometimes people will have a heat stroke and get to a hospital, and they will survive, but they will have permanent damage to their kidneys or other internal organs, because some of the cellular structures of those organs have begun to melt, and there’s no fixing that. So even if you survive heat stroke, you can still have permanent damage.”

Listen to the full interview on Apple Podcasts