by Joseph Vazquez
May 29, 2026
from ClimateChangeDispatch Website

"New York Is Going to Flood."

The New York Times, October 2025.

AI image.

The 'worst-case' scenario

that was sold as inevitable

just got retired by the scientists

who made it...!

Watching an arrogant lefty newspaper scatter around like a bug trying to salvage its climate doom mongering after scientists pull the proverbial rug out from underneath it is one of the most satisfying things to see.
 

New York Times reporters Brad Plumer and Eric Niiler tried to temper the political firestorm that erupted after an international team of climate researchers "abandoned" the ridiculous RCP8.5, one of the most dire climate change scenarios that's been passed around through the academic ether over the years like a virus.

Their May 26 item, "Why Scientists Retired the Dire Climate Scenario Used for Over a Decade," tried to double down on the global warming boondoggle while giving a perfunctory nod to the fact that the climate apocalypse may have been exaggerated:

"While global warming is still a threat, the decision to back away from a worst-case outlook raises questions about whether some risks have been overstated."

No kidding, Sherlock!

The Times itself is guilty of pushing the same kind of unhinged scare porn based on RCP8.5, as American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Roger Pielke Jr. concluded based on a Times article published October 15, 2025, headlined,

"New York is Going to Flood - Here's what the City can do to Survive."

How about this "interactive" beauty from The New York Times Magazine legitimizing the RCP8.5 scenario from October 26, 2022, "Beyond Catastrophe - A New Climate Reality is coming into View?"

That piece, authored by Times columnist David Wallace-Wells, bookended both the hopeful and catastrophic climate scenarios based on mere projections of future global emissions output:

"For decades, visions of possible climate futures have been anchored by, on the one hand, Pollyanna-like faith that normality would endure, and on the other, millenarian intuitions of an ecological end of days, during which perhaps billions of lives would be devastated or destroyed."

Reading Plumer and Niiler's soft-pedaled walk-back in retrospect is enough to evoke a few chuckles:

"The majority of climate scientists still say global warming is a serious problem, and that even more plausible, medium-emissions scenarios can carry grave dangers.

 

But the new paper has raised questions about whether some of the risks of climate change have been poorly communicated or overstated in years past and how best to think about those risks going forward."

Worthy of note is that "majority of climate scientists" is quite the step backward from "overwhelming scientific consensus," eh, boys?

Perhaps The Times should look itself in the mirror, but since when has the Old Gray Lady shown any capability of self-awareness?

Plumer and Niiler downplayed how RCP8.5,

"wasn't meant to be a prediction, but more of a 'worst case,' said Detlef van Vuuren, a climate scientist at Utrecht University and a leading figure in scenario development."

Then why was the newspaper acting as if it was only a matter of time before New York City would start treading water?

Despite the RCP8.5 scenario being tossed out, both Plumer and Niiler tried to salvage the utility of pushing climate apocalypse narratives, even if they're implausible in nature:

"Many scientists find it useful to probe such hypotheticals.

 

Climate models often struggle to capture dynamics like whether ice sheets might collapse with moderate warming, even though this is an extraordinarily important question for the real world."

It's also "useful" if you're trying to scare readers silly to push a ludicrous agenda that has hamstrung the U.S. economy for years.