The 35 wet-bulb figure assumes ideal conditions otherwise: shade, access to hydration, and complete physical inactivity. People will get sick, and some will die

The 35 wet-bulb figure assumes ideal conditions otherwise: shade, access to hydration, and complete physical inactivity. People will get sick, and some will die, sitting on their couches. It's the level at which death or severe illness becomes a likely outcome of long-term exposure, no matter what. The good news is that it almost never happens in nature. 31-32 is about as bad as it gets, anywhere in the world. You'll be miserable at 31 WBT, but if you drink lots of water (meaning 2+ gallons per day) and stay in the shade, you won't die. Go out and work in the sun for two hours and all bets are off. That said, most people in the world cannot afford to sit on their couches to wait out the heat. Agricultural workers will start dropping dead once we see 30 WBT on a regular basis. If things get bad enough, we'll see a collapse in food productivity that will utterly destroy the global system, and while the downfall of corporate capitalism is something all people of conscience want, I don't think any of us want it to happen in that precise way, because it'll be replaced by something worse (widespread war and slavery).