New York 2140

Posted for Sarah Wilson

New York 2140 Essay

The novel is set in Manhattan in the year 2140. Sea level has risen about 50 feet, climate
change is on the rise, and there is currently a mass extinction event occurring. There are food
panics throughout the world, not just New York. Millions of people have died throughout the
occurrence of these events. The novel is set through the perspective of eight people: Mutt and
Jeff, Inspector Gen, Franklin Garr, Vlade Marovich, a random citizen, Amelia Black, Charlotte
Armstrong, and Stefan and Roberto. Each part has a chapter dedicated to each character, so once
the chapter ends it doesn’t pick up on that character’s perspective until it has gone through each
character. The theme I picked up on throughout the novel thus far is how you must continue with
your everyday life even after something disrupts your everyday life. The characters in this book
had to adjust to ways of getting around their city after it was flooded with water. The streets
turned to canals, so they had to trade their cars for boats, so they could still get around the city
and live their everyday lives. Some of the characters had to move cities because some cities like
lower Manhattan and the Bronx are completely submerged. I do believe that one day coastal
cities could be completely submerged like they are in this novel. I don’t think it will happen
anytime in my lifetime, but it is a possibility. We already see a rise of climate currently
happening throughout us in the real world, so how do we know that we won’t face these same
events that the characters in this novel are facing? We don’t know. I remember a few months ago
I was reading an article about the thickest ice in the Artic was finally cracking. That ice was
untouched for however many years and now the temperatures are rising so high that the ice is
cracking. Next, it’ll start to melt. It’s not all about the rise of the temperature either; it also has to
do with how long it’s staying warm. For example, we are entering the second week of October
and it’s still just as hot as it was in August and September. That’s just crazy. Did you also know
that from 2000-2018 we reached record breaking highs for 16 of those years? That means 16
years out of the past 18 years have been record breaking highs, and we have experienced all of
them! I’ve read that one of the biggest stressors to your body is when it’s hot throughout the day
and throughout the night your body can’t cool down properly and that is the cause of death for
many people, especially those who can’t afford air conditioning in the summer. The novel is a
little hard to follow because it jumps from perspective to perspective, but nonetheless I have
enjoyed reading it. The novel is about 615 pages, so I’m not exactly half way through the book,
but I have enjoyed it so far and plan to finish it for my final report.