When Can We Expect Manhattan To Drown?

Oct. 2001

Extreme weather means more terrifying hurricanes and tornadoes and fires than we usually see. But what can we expect such conditions to do to our daily life?

While doing research 12 or 13 years ago, I met Jim Hansen, the scientist who in 1988 predicted the greenhouse effect before Congress. I went over to the window with him and looked out on Broadway in New York City and said, “If what you’re saying about the greenhouse effect is true, is anything going to look different down there in 20 years?” He looked for a while and was quiet and didn’t say anything for a couple seconds. Then he said, “Well, there will be more traffic.” I, of course, didn’t think he heard the question right. Then he explained, “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.” Then he said, “There will be more police cars.” Why? “Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.”

And so far, over the last 10 years, we’ve had 10 of the hottest years on record.

Didn’t he also say that restaurants would have signs in their windows that read, “Water by request only.”

Under the greenhouse effect, extreme weather increases. Depending on where you are in terms of the hydrological cycle, you get more of whatever you’re prone to get. New York can get droughts, the droughts can get more severe and you’ll have signs in restaurants saying “Water by request only.”

When did he say this will happen?

Within 20 (2008) or 30 (2018) years. And remember we had this conversation in 1988 or 1989.

Does he still believe these things?

Yes, he still believes everything. I talked to him a few months ago and he said he wouldn’t change anything that he said then.

http://dir.salon.com/books/int/2001/10/23/weather/index.html

About Tony Heller

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19 Responses to When Can We Expect Manhattan To Drown?

  1. Edward says:

    “Yes, he still believes everything. I talked to him a few months ago and he said he wouldn’t change anything that he said then.”

    …….As I guided him back itowards his secure unit and comfortable padded cell……………….

  2. Tony Duncan says:

    For the new readers who are unfamiliar with this issue please reference the previous post and my comments there. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/manhattan-still-there/

    Steve,
    thanks for saving me the trouble of putting the quote up.

    So, it is clear that he does NOT know what date, since he hedges on it, in one place saying 20 years, in another saying 20-30. And this is NOT Hansen, This is the guy who interviewed him THIRTEEN years earlier. Reiss doesn’t even remember when the INTERVIEW was – “And remember we had this conversation in 1988 or 1989.”
    SInce this quote was circulated throughout the anti Climate change and right wing blogoshpere, NO ONE bothered to check the BOOK that this interview was publicizing. the book that is featured in the headline of the article. the book that is mentioned in the first and third paragraphs. the book that has publication info in the 4rth paragraph. the book that has a direct link to buying it. the book that has the CORRECT quote.
    After Hansen was ridiculed repeatedly for this MISquote, he publicly stated that he had never made the quote. The Author of the book made a public retraction , saying that the quote in the article was wrong, because he had not had his notes and it was just a casual phone conversation. the book CLEARLY has a different date in the quote and CLEARLY shows the question was a hypothetical one that REISS asked Hansen that included a doubling of CO2 by 2028.

    So Steve is deciding to believe a quote that both the author and the subject deny ever was said. There is an ACCURATE quote in a book written from notes taken during the actual interview that totally contradicts the retracted quote, and there is no other evidence to show Hansen ever said it there, and no evidence that he has ever said or written anything remotely like the article quote.

    Oh and I keep coming up with even more things wrong. Hansen has since repudiated a 4.2°C temp rise with doubling of CO2, so he could probably give himself another 10 years if he wanted (without the CO2 doubling of course).

    Interesting how I never tire of pointing out the facts after all this time.

  3. GregW says:

    Tony, I think by now I know how you feel about Hansen’s Manhattan of the future.

    What do you think of this Hansen quote from the post above? Hansen wrote it in 2006?
    “The last time the world was three degrees warmer than today – which is what we expect later this century – sea levels were 25m higher. So that is what we can look forward to if we don’t act soon.”

    So “later this century” sea levels will probably rise by up to 82 FEET, according to Hansen. Sounds like that highway would be toast. What do you think?

    • Dave N says:

      That’s my take on the situation, too. Even if Hansen didn’t say what was published in Salon, he has made so many other lunatic predictions they drown (pun intended) that one out completely.

  4. Sundance says:

    Hansen has modelled the end of the world and he’s spreading the word.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn1tdyZW3H8

  5. I remember visiting my grandparents on Long Island in the 1960s during the drought, and they didn’t serve water in restaurants. You had to buy a coke.

  6. Ill wind blowing says:

    GregW:
    Hansen in 2006:
    “The last time the world was three degrees warmer than today – which is what we expect later this century – sea levels were 25m higher. So that is what we can look forward to if we don’t act soon.”

    Not having read what Hansen said my interpretation of the above is that:

    1. He based his statement about 3 degrees (C or F?) leading to 25 meter sea level rise on geological records.

    2. Please read the sentence again.

    What he expected “later this century” was the temperature rise. The timing of the actual sea level rise is not determined.

    The next sentence, “that is what we can look forward to” is not referring to the temperature rise within the end of the century but to the sea level rise which was left indefinite in time.

    3. And it would be absurd to assume that X amount of sea level rise would happen immediately after the temperature rise since it takes time for gigatonnes of ice to melt. It could be centuries before the full 25 meter rise potential comes about.

  7. Richard Todd says:

    I love perturbed whackos. Please keep it coming ill guy!

  8. GregW says:

    Hansen tends to make doomsday predictions which do not come to pass.
    From “Haunting the Library”
    ‘Here’s a selection of his predictions from the archives.
    This one from 1986 on temperature increase in America:
    Hansen said the average U.S. temperature had risen from one to two degrees since 1958 and is predicted to increase an additional 3 or 4 degrees sometime between 2010 and 2020.
    The Press-Courier (Milwaukee) June 11 1986

    Staying in 1986 for the moment, we have this unequivocal prediction:
    “Within 15 years,” said Goddard Space Flight Honcho James Hansen, “global temperatures will rise to a level which hasn’t existed on earth for 100,000 years”.
    The News and Courier, June 17th 1986

    Going back to 1982, we find Hansen arguing that if fossil fuel use was restricted, England might be a tropical paradise by 2050. If we carried on as normal, the world would be back in the sort of heat last seen in the age of the dinosaurs.
    Hansen presented results of studies which indicated likely climate changes under different energy policies.
    If there were slow growth in the use of hydrocarbon fuels, the world in the middle of the next century would be as warm as it was 125,000 years ago, when lions, elephants and other tropical animals roamed a balmy southern England.
    Pursuing present plans for coal and oil, Hansen found, the climate in the middle of the 21st century “would approach the warmth of the age of the dinosaurs”
    The Leader-Post, January 9th, 1982.

    By 1989, far from toning it down, Hansen was starting to really turn up the heat, predicting totally unprecedented warming so far as mankind was concerned:
    “By the year 2050 we’re going to have tremendous climate changes, far outside what man has ever experienced” said James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.
    Computer models by Hansen and others suggest that by the middle of the next century earth’s average temperature may rise 4 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit, possibly altering storm patterns, making crops fail, and raising sea levels to flood low-lying coastal areas.
    Observer-Reporter, December 7th, 1989’
    http://hauntingthelibrary.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/james-hansen-1986-within-15-years-temps-will-be-hotter-than-past-100000-years/

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