In 2020, New York City's weather was formally reclassified by the US National Climate Assessment. Long considered to exist within a coastal temperate climate, the city is now in a humid subtropical climate zone, complete with the unpredictable afternoon thundershowers and sweltering nights we experienced throughout June and July of this year. But steamy summers and snowless winters are the least of our troubles if the trend continues unopposed and polar ice sheets continue to shrink. This program traces the contours of approaching disaster, in millennia-old ice core samples, personal tragedies, traditional rituals, and dystopian streaming media. Climate change may not be a foregone conclusion but the modern energy landscape is painfully resistant to change. We close then, knowing full well that the idea of the "carbon footprint" was designed by petroleum companies to shift blame from the system to the individual, with a bleakly sardonic reflection on personal consumption and responsibility.
