More people feel the heat of climate change as July shatters temperature records
SAN FRANCISCO -- From devastating wildfires, blistering heat and warming oceans, July 2023 was brutally hot and one for the record books.
A new report issued by Climate Central detailed how July shattered heat records and found 81% of the world's population felt the extreme heat during this month.
"The world that we grew up in, you know that climate, that idea of summer, that idea of the kind of temperature ranges that we live in is gone. We're moving into, and already are in, a much hotter world," Climate journalist Jeff Goodell told CBS News Bay Area
Goodell was in town to speak at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. The topic: his instant best-seller called "The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Earth."
The Sunnyvale native who now lives in Texas has written about climate change for decades. But this time, the reaction to his book was different. It was released mid-July and has been on the New York Times Bestselling list for weeks. As for why it's gotten that response, Goodell believes it may have to do with so many individuals feeling the heat.
"I think people this summer are starting to feel, 'Wait this is happening and I'm at risk'. I had one woman I was talking to who told me her daughter came up to her and said 'Mommy, why is the sky broken?" noted Goodell.
Unlike hurricanes, rising temperatures are an invisible danger that can put a dangerous strain on the human body. The most vulnerable are older Americans, pregnant women, the young, and those with chronic medical conditions.
"A lot of people who die from the heat die first from a cardiac arrest that is what kind of does them in because their heart is working so hard to cool them off," said Goodell.
The documented science is clear: average temperatures are rising around the world.
California's average summer temperature is now 3 degrees hotter than it was a little more than a century ago, and half of that increase occurred in the early 1970s.
And while the climate may be changing, our bodies have not adapted to handling extreme heat.
"If your temperature inside gets up around 103 degrees, 104 degrees, the actual membranes of your cellular structures begin to melt. The proteins that control the functions of those cells begin to unfold; your body starts hemorrhaging inside. You literally melt from the inside," said Goodell.
Despite the worrisome implications of a new climate, Goodell remains hopeful.
"I feel very optimistic about where, what we can do if we put attention, if we put our minds to it if we really fight for it. And I think one of the reasons I feel that way is because I grew up in Silicon Valley. I grew up in a place where innovation mattered," explained Goodell.
He cautions, that while there is a lot, we can do to adapt we must adapt soon and without hesitation.
"We are building a new different world and it's up to us what that world is going to look like," he said.
for more features.
