The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--also known at the United Nations report on Global Warming--stated this week that global warming is, without doubt, caused by human activity. What does this mean for New York City?
A few scenarios if the temperature rises an average 1 degree celsius in the next 20 years (remember, we’re talking averages):
- 20 more 90-degree days per year
- vast power outages, like the blackout two summers back, occurring every few months--followed by rioting and looting.
- malaria widespread death; too many bodies to bury followed by cholera.
food shortages as the world’s agrarian centers shift
- everything at sea level (think nearly all of Manhattan) underwater and uninhabitable due to rising seas.
- chaotic population shifts (again, think all of Manhattan, as well as Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Long Island) as the sea inundates everything (plans to build sea walls is too pathetically sad to be laughable).
It will make the Day after Tomorrow look like the Lizzy McGuire Movie.