New York 2140 Final Blog Post [DRAFT]

New York 2140 Final Blog Post[DRAFT]

Sarah Wilson

            Recap: The year is 2140. The world is completely out of fossil fuels, so solar, wind, and hydroelectric power are the main sources of power. Cement is no longer used for construction purposes because it releases too much carbon into the atmosphere. Instead they use graphite composites because they say it’s cleaner and stronger. Close to two-hundred coastal cities are completely underwater and the cities that aren’t are just a few catastrophic events away from being underwater as well because sea level is at an all-time high. The world is in another mass extinction event; 50,000 distinct species have already gone extinct. Earth is in danger of losing most mammals and amphibians, all birds, fish, and reptiles are in danger of going extinct. Currently the population sits a little over 9 billion people. Someone has offered to buy The Met, which is home to thousands of people who live in Manhattan. The Met is one of the biggest co-op buildings in Manhattan with the most residents.

            For the most part this is novel portrays a dystopian society, but there is a somewhat happy ending. Although each character goes on about their everyday life even though a lot is different I still picture it as a dystopian society. The novel states that the city of Brooklyn is about 25 feet underwater. People don’t drive cars because there are no streets to drive on. They ride their boats and jet skis through the canals to get around and then they use the sidewalks that have been built to get wherever they are going from there. So many people were displaced from their homes when sea level rose and there wasn’t much place within the other cities for them to go, so people resorted to “sky villages.” Engineers built cities on top of platforms in the sky. They anchored the platforms down to the sides of tall mountains for support. This idea gave many people a place to live and call “home.”  The reason I say that the novel portrays it as a dystopian society is because towards the end of the novel is when the big superstorm that they’ve been predicting finally hits. The hurricane that hits is named Hurricane Fyodor, but the citizens call the storm itself the “third pulse.” Pulses are basically major catastrophic events that have occurred and caused mass destruction. Hurricane Fyodor marked as a 25.9 on the barometer and caused sea level to rise an additional 21 feet. Winds were as strong as 130 mph. The hurricane caused hundreds of injuries and although it never states how many people died from the storm one of the characters states that they saw a few dead carcasses floating down the canals. Food and sanitation problems became more of an issue. Before the hurricane hit I didn’t really get a dystopian view from the novel until the hurricane arrives towards the end. The novel basically ends with the building not selling because the guy who put the offer on The Met took it off after some possible blackmail on him was going to leak out. All the main characters in the novel survive the hurricane, and The Met takes minimal damage from the hurricane, so the majority of the residents aren’t displaced from their homes. [SIDENOTE: The day of my presentation somebody asked a question, ‘why someone would still want to buy The Met if it was flooded’ and I realized after my presentation that I wasn’t clear with my answer on the leaks that were occurring to The Met before the hurricane, so here is a more explained answer. I apologize if there was confusion... They were minuscule leaks. The floors weren’t flooded there was only small amounts of water that leaked through. Vlade, the super-intendent of the building, caught the leaks before they became something big. Vlade has a system throughout The Met that alerts him anytime the smallest thing goes wrong, so that’s how he was able to catch all the leaks before they flooded and ruined the building.]

            The novel is set from the perspective of 8 different characters, and each chapter is from a different character’s perspective. I liked the novel, but I wasn’t a fan of how the novel is laid out because I’d go 7 chapters before getting back to the same character, so I’d have to remember what this character was up to when the chapter left off. I didn’t have a reason for choosing this novel other than the overview of it sounded like something I would like. I didn’t realize until after I got the book in the mail only to find out it was about 615 pages. I was still interested to read it and see how Kim Stanley Robinson portrays a possible outcome for the future. Although nobody really knows how the future is going to end up, it’s good to know the possibilities of what COULD happen. The majority of the climate fiction novels we reported on in class are all fair possibilities of what the future holds. I have a few of the novels my class mates reported on saved to buy and read because I’m interested what other novels this genre has to offer.  I honestly liked this novel a lot and would personally recommend it even though it’s a lot.