Did New York 2140 come true?
Mostly not yet. New York 2140 (2017) has a P(n) of 26% on Nearfi's P(n) Board, our estimate of the chance its future arrives within 20 years. Of its 4 tracked predictions, 0 have arrived and 2 are arriving. Its central premise, 'Two pulses of sea-level rise leave the sea about 50 feet (15 metres) above today's level, drowning lower Manhattan, by 2140', is still far off. The next prediction is estimated to arrive around 2032.
New York 2140 is more prescient about money than about water. Markets already discount homes exposed to rising seas, and states have already taken failing banks into public ownership, though temporarily. The fifty-foot flood is a far tail of the physics, and a mass household debt strike that remakes finance has no real precedent at that scale.
Read the review · 7.4/10 →
How this P(n) was calculated
P(n) is the chance that this work's future arrives within 20 years, by 2046. For each prediction we turn our estimate into a probability: arrived is 100%, diverged is 0%, and otherwise the low end of our 80% range counts as a 10% chance, the median year 50% and the high end 90%. Each prediction is weighted 1–5 by how pivotal it is to the story, and P(n) is the weighted average. P50 does the same by 2076. P(n), explained.
| Claim | Prediction · why this weight | Weight | Status · estimate | By 2046 | By 2076 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NY2140-1 | Two pulses of sea-level rise leave the sea about 50 feet (15 metres) above today's level, drowning lower Manhattan, by 2140. Core premise: the drowned, intertidal city is the setting and the pressure behind every plotline. |
5 | FAR 2400 (2250–2700) | 1% | 2% |
| NY2140-2 | Financiers build indices and trade on which flooded or flood-exposed properties will hold their value, with mortgages priced to sea-level risk. Supporting: Franklin Garr's trade in intertidal property shapes his arc and the book's economics, though the plot turns elsewhere. |
3 | ARRIVING 2032 (2028–2045) | 91% | 100% |
| NY2140-3 | A mass refusal by ordinary households to pay rents, mortgages, student loans and other private debts brings the global financial system to the edge of collapse. Major: the debt strike is the book's engine of change and the route to its climax. |
4 | FAR 2100 (2050–2200) | 8% | 31% |
| NY2140-4 | After a financial crash, the state takes failing major banks into public ownership and uses them for public ends, funding a new settlement with a tax on capital. Major: bank nationalisation is the political climax that resolves the plot's financial storyline. |
4 | ARRIVING 2060 (2035–2100) | 28% | 66% |
| P(n) = P20 = Σ(weight × chance by 2046) ÷ Σ weight = 4.2 ÷ 16 = 26% | |||||
| P50 = 7.0 ÷ 16 = 44% | |||||
Already here today (arrived 1, arriving ½, weighted): 22%.
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NY2140-1
Two pulses of sea-level rise leave the sea about 50 feet (15 metres) above today's level, drowning lower Manhattan, by 2140.
Weight 5/5 · Core premise: the drowned, intertidal city is the setting and the pressure behind every plotline.
New York's sea level has already risen about a foot since 1900, and the city's climate panel expects at least another foot, possibly almost two, by the 2050s. A rise of about 15 metres is not a central projection. The Met Office describes a low-likelihood, high-impact storyline, based on widespread Antarctic ice loss, of up to about 15 metres by 2300. Robinson has said the rise was possible but extreme. We therefore place this well beyond 2140, and the range allows for the possibility that it never happens. 123
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NY2140-2
Financiers build indices and trade on which flooded or flood-exposed properties will hold their value, with mortgages priced to sea-level risk.
Weight 3/5 · Supporting: Franklin Garr's trade in intertidal property shapes his arc and the book's economics, though the plot turns elsewhere.
Homes exposed to sea-level rise already sell for about 7% less than comparable unexposed homes, and the gap has grown over time. Property-level flood models exist, and a 2023 study estimated that US flood-exposed homes are still overvalued by $121 to $237 billion, which means pricing is real but incomplete. The claim is not yet fully ARRIVED because mortgage pricing remains patchy and the market for explicitly trading intertidal risk is thin. We expect the market to deepen as disclosure improves. 45
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NY2140-3
A mass refusal by ordinary households to pay rents, mortgages, student loans and other private debts brings the global financial system to the edge of collapse.
Weight 4/5 · Major: the debt strike is the book's engine of change and the route to its climax.
Small debt strikes exist. In 2015 fifteen former Corinthian Colleges students stopped paying their federal loans, and the group Strike Debt had bought and cancelled Corinthian debt. A strike on the scale of millions of households, across mortgages and rents as well as student loans, has no precedent, and collective-action problems and the personal cost of default make it hard to organise. We rate it beyond Nearfi's fifty-year window, with wide uncertainty. 678
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NY2140-4
After a financial crash, the state takes failing major banks into public ownership and uses them for public ends, funding a new settlement with a tax on capital.
Weight 4/5 · Major: bank nationalisation is the political climax that resolves the plot's financial storyline.
The takeover half has happened: Britain nationalised Northern Rock in February 2008 and held a large stake in RBS (now NatWest) until its final share sale on 30 May 2025. But these takeovers were temporary rescues, run at arm's length and returned to private hands, and none was used to fund a wealth-tax settlement. The long-term public ownership and redistribution in the novel has no equivalent yet. 91011
- AGAINST What's in store for New York City because of climate change?. The City, 2024-01-22. Reports that city sea level has risen about a foot since 1900 and the city's climate panel expects one to two more feet by the 2050s.
- FOR Past and future sea level rise. Met Office, 2024. A low-likelihood, high-impact storyline could produce up to about 15 metres of global rise by 2300, from widespread Antarctic ice loss.
- CONTEXT New York 2140. Wikipedia, 2026-11-06. Summarises the novel's 50-foot rise and records Robinson saying the rise was possible but extreme, and that scientists suggest 3 to 15 feet by 2140 is more likely.
- FOR Disaster on the horizon: The price effect of sea level rise. Journal of Financial Economics, 2019. Homes exposed to sea-level rise sell for about 7% less than equivalent unexposed homes, a discount that has grown and is driven by sophisticated buyers.
- AGAINST Unpriced climate risk and the potential consequences of overvaluation in US housing markets. Nature Climate Change (via Resources for the Future), 2023. Flood-zone properties are still overvalued by $121 to $237 billion, so markets have only partly priced the risk.
- FOR Strike Debt erases $13M of student debt, while former students launch debt strike. Waging Nonviolence, 2015-02-23. Fifteen former Corinthian students refuse to repay loans until the Department of Education cancels them: a debt strike, but a tiny one.
- CONTEXT All Corinthian College loans to be canceled. The American Prospect, 2022-06-01. The Biden administration cancels an expected $5.8 billion for 560,000 Corinthian borrowers, showing pressure can win relief without threatening the banks.
- CONTEXT Imagining a Green New Deal Through Climate Fiction. Edge Effects, 2019. Describes the novel's strike, led on air by Amelia Black, which precipitates a global financial collapse.
- FOR Nationalisation of Northern Rock. Wikipedia, 2008-02. The UK took Northern Rock into public ownership in February 2008 after two private takeover bids failed.
- AGAINST Government completes exit from NatWest. HM Treasury (GOV.UK), 2025-05-30. The state sold its final shares on 30 May 2025, ending all crisis-era banking interventions and recovering about £10.5 billion less than it put in.
- CONTEXT Imagining a Green New Deal Through Climate Fiction. Edge Effects, 2019. Describes the novel's nationalisation of banks and the 'Piketty tax' that funds its reforms.
Ledger updated 6 Nov 2026. All works on the P(n) Board · Method