I started reading a new blog, “Manhattan Contrarian”. The latest blog entry is about predictions of imminent disaster, due to global warming. The writer offers the original prediction and then discusses whether or not the prediction became true. 

I found fault with the analysis about the need to hold back rising waters in New York due to rising sea level. First, the prediction says this event will take place in 2035. The author offers that if this was believable, then New York should be constructing dikes and levees now. The absence of dikes proves his contention that the prediction is false. I offer the picture below, to demonstrate that the author’s premise is false.

The year: [46 years after prediction]. Massive dikes around New Orleans, Miami, and New York are holding back rising sea water. Phoenix is baking in its third straight week of temperatures above 115 degrees. Decades of drought have laid waste to the once-fertile Midwestern farm belt. Hurricanes batter the Gulf Coast, and forest fires continue to black thousands of acres across the country. Science fiction? Hardly. These are the sobering global warming or “greenhouse effect” scenarios that many scientists believe may happen if we continue to pollute our environment. . . . [N]othing short of an immediate worldwide effort by governments, corporations and especially individual citizens will be needed to reverse the environmental crisis that now threatens the entire planet.

Answer for Prediction Number 4: This one comes from self-described all-around genius Jeremy Rifkin (“author of 20 bestselling books about the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment.” and “advisor to the leadership of the European Union since 2000” — really, does that tell you all you need to know about what idiots the Europeans are?), and is found in an article in none other than the Poughkeepsie Journal (my hometown newspaper!) in 1989. OK, the date for the prediction (2035) hasn’t arrived yet. But, if we were going to need “massive dikes” to protect New York City by 2035, shouldn’t there be by now some evidence of the sea level going up?

There are plenty of dykes in New York City.