is there irony behind NYC's "world's greatest city" status? (New York: best city, refrigerators)

[edsg25]

I don't know if there is or ever was a "world's greatest city", but if there is one now arguably it is New York City. No city on the planet has the power and energy of the Big Apple in this global economy of ours and the global economy for better or for worse (I choose worse) is what the planet is all about today.

but is there irony in New York's role and status?

only feet away from the foot of Wall Street, the epicenter of the global economy, lies the East River. The East River is no river at all and it, along with the nearby upper bay, and the close by Long Island Sound are parts of the Atlantic Ocean, itself close enough for an easy view from endless towers in lower Manhattan. Wall Street might not get it, but those occupying it do. And those occupiers are aware that those high above the ground at the top of those surrounding towers will be as negatively affected by what's coming as the disenfranchised on the ground are: nobody is immune from the ocean and its power.

And that ocean is on the rise. In real time. It is fueled by global warming (or man made climate change, a more accurate term) which is melting ice at the poles and rising all waters in the global ocean.

And precious few great cities are as vulnerable to its rise as is relatively flat New York (which includes basically flattened Manhattan, an island whose bottom 2/3s was pancaked when the street grid was put in place).

All cities do what they can to enhance their position in this global economy, thinking ahead to their role in playing it out. Yet in doing so, their heads are buried in the sand:

the very factors that increase New York's role at the top of the global food chain, those very human factors that make keep it strong crumble in face of the natural and earth forces that are far stronger and will literally kill the goose that laid the golden egg and destroy quality of life and any thought of wealth.

In 1960 or 1970 or even 1980, these forces could still, I suppose, be ignored. But no longer. They are the 800 pound elephant in the room and you can no longer either wish away climate change or shrinking resources or other aspects of a dying global economy (for dying it is, since mother nature is far stronger than we are and she is killing it off because it is not sustainable.

I'm not talking philosophy here. I'm talking reality: New York is threatened by a rising sea and will pay the price this century. Manhattan doesn't have to be completely under a foot (or even an inch) of water to make it happen.

And yet we project ourselves into the future and the city (and nation and world) still ignore the obvious while the big bucks are earned on wall street and the good life still lived by those involved with the process.

talk about ostriches whose heads are buried in the sand, sand hit by high tide and under the water. And when it comes to "world's greatest city", the eternal city of Rome had an incredibly long run by standards of a Broadway play; New York may well be destined for a short shelf life on a waterlogged shelf. And there won't be a place on the planet that goes unaffected and undevestated because of what is transpiring.

[Gpsma]

Global warming..climate change...is that fad still being bandied about. Thought that was forgotten when we got "change" four years ago.

[Ilovethecommunity]

California will sink someday too. The San Andreas fault line will cause a massive earth quake bigger than the one in Japan.

New York will sink someday. A lot of people know that.

You're post still sounds paranoid though. It's not going to happen for a while. There will be no way to stop nature so just enjoy it while it's here. It probably won't even happen in our lifetime.

[DoomDan515]

Yeah, because it isn't. It's not even the country's best city.

[geoking66]

…and much of Lower Manhattan is surprisingly hilly and would need over 20 feet of sea level rise to even come close to being trouble. By that point something would have been done, so I neglect to see the issue here. And didn't we establish that global warming data was manipulated by people at the University of East Anglia or am I losing it?

[Strate L O S S]

remember the ice age that was due by now ?

and the fiery pits ?

run for the hills!

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by Ilovethecommunity

You're post still sounds paranoid though.

nothing paranoid about it. i'm not of the "sky-is-falling" ilk. what i am relying is scientific data, data that most credible scientists in the world buy into. pure scientific method which doesn't answer many questions, but does answer quite a few.

paranoia is an emotional response. and i am not trying to be emotional when i state the conditions that are making global waters rise and have near effect on low lying areas along the coasts (i.e. most of Manhattan and most of NYC).

problems will start well before manhattan is inundated with water and the problems that start wills seriously affect life in New York. that's unescapable.

now you may think that i'm paranoid, ilove, but i assure you the people in there Maldives, the islands nation in the Indian Ocean, flat and surrounded by water. their president is leading a global awareness campaign as to what is happening to his nation, a nation where both president and people are convinced that rising sea levels will put them under water.

one thing is sure though: if people want to consider such scenarios as "paranoia", then the worst case scenarios will follow. if there is any window of opportunity left, it is now.

all those wonderful things about New York are threatened as it, like so much of the rest of the world, falls victim to its incredible power to destroy itself.

but you have a perfect right to ignore it, believe it will not happen, put on a happy face and wish for the global city of the global world to continue to pump out that cornucopia of consumer goods and consumer lifestyles without any thought that there will be a price to pay.

i don't expect anyone to look at these conditions in terms of "doom and gloom". again, an emotional response is not the answer. but the problems we are facing are happening in real time. and scientists have found through their tests that things are happening at more accelerated rate than even they expected. so we're not talking about something "way off there" in the future; we're talking about now and the years that follow.

and if we don't do something to stem the problems now, to at least try to get things in order, to try to prevent further breakdown, then we really don't have a chance. based on many of the comments i see here (which are echoed by many people on this planet), there is not much worry or sense of urgency so the global economy of which NYC is the capital will continue to take its toll.

if we don't even have the right conversations, if we don't even have the healthy concerns we need to have: what chance do we really have?

[mexguy]

^^ Who are you? Al Gore?

[Kefir King]

I feel there's little point in worrying about the inevitable.
Fossil fuels will continue to be burned for fuel until there is so little left it will not be economically feasible. Populations will increase to even IMMENSER proportions becasue there is no force to battle religious fatacism. Wars will get bigger and uglier, education will become sparser and sparser, being replaced by indoctrination. All ice outside of refrigerators will disappear.
The gap between rich and poor will widen requiring the rich to be protected by even more powerful police states.

Some plague or another will come along and decimate billions, crops will fail, desertification will cause worldwide starvation as nature tries to rebalance.

And there's not a fu%$ing thing we can do about it.

And New York will not do much better or worse than the rest of the planet except for the fact that very little of it will remain sticking out of the ocean.

None of this is paranoia but logical extensions of the current state of affairs. Paranoia is an IRRATIONAL fear. My expectation is neither irrational nor fearful just a realization of things to come. I have no children, no nieces nor nephew so my interest is only an intellectual exercise in observing the stupidy of mankind.

I like Gore Vidal's line in Fellini's ROMA. He was asked why he lived in Italy and he said: "Well that's where civilization began and what better place to watch its fall than from a hill near Rome."

[11KAP]

i guess..