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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Jittery environmentalist flees NYC home for fear of climate change (and makes a killing)
2007-03-12
h/t Tim Blair

Paddington Zwigard, an avid environmentalist who is also a broker with Brown Harris Stevens, just sold her $4.15 million "green" penthouse on Chambers Street between Hudson and Greenwich Streets. Though she was long aware that its location near the river made it vulnerable to flooding — either from a hurricane or a long-term rise in sea levels — she was willing to stomach the risk to live near the river.

When she decided to sell, she thought the apartment's location would prompt at least some questions from buyers, though when it didn't, she suspected it was the result of "younger, self-absorbed, mass-materialist consumers who are really not aware of anything outside their whatever," Zwigard said.
Pocketing her $4.15 mil, Paddington fled to higher ground, muttering invectives under her breath. "You young, self-absorbed, mass-materialist dupes! Just wait until the ice caps melt and the seas rise. You'll be sitting there in your Barcalounger, watching Deal or No Deal on the plasma screen, too stupid to flee as Gaia's avenging tsunami rolls in. Think your Cusinart or your BMW or your 401(k) will save you then? Ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha!"
She speculates that the extensive condo development has attracted a certain type of buyer: wealthier, more mobile and disinclined to look more than a few years into his or her homeowning future. Zwigard is planning to buy other apartments downtown, renovate them and sell them — betting, in effect, on others' shortsightedness.
"Someday, you Earth-destroying Yuppie dupes, you'll all be dead and drowned, you and your SUVs, and I'll be up on the Palisaides with the surviving polar bears, enjoying my beachfront property and laughing at you. Gaia's vengeance will be complete, and I, her faithful low-carbon-footprinted servant, will inherit the Earth! And I'll be rich, too! And it'll all be long-term capital gains so my tax rate is lower! Ha-ha-ha-ha!"

Tim Blair comments:

Wouldn’t an “avid environmentalist” have some moral issues with this? Perhaps Paddington is one of those self-absorbed materialist types.
Posted by:Mike

#14  HHHHHHMMMMMM, okay, I'll bite, iff NYC is doomed Dooomed DOOMED D-O-O-M-E-D DDDDDOOOOOOOMMMMEEEDDD ala DAY AFTER TOMMORROW + EARTH CHANGES, ergo buy other equally doomed Apts-Condos-Houses and resell to fellow doomed New Yorkers, etc Amers, instead getting the hell out of dodge???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2007-03-12 22:42  

#13  Green Penthouse, ya say? Don't have to buy pentinance with carbon footprint offsets from Al Gorilioni, ya say? But are ye woman enough to work on the slime line at a fish cannery, er are ye just a pretty picher in a magazine? Arrrr.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2007-03-12 21:53  

#12  You can see a picture of Paddington Whatever Zwigard, and her overpriced Real Estate at the LINKY.
Posted by: Chiper Threreger8956   2007-03-12 20:58  

#11  I'm thinking of making this my motto: Not really aware of anything outside my whatever. Whaddaya think?

Whatever.
Posted by: xbalanke   2007-03-12 15:27  

#10  A must see movie. The Great Global Warming Swindle.
Warning, 74 minutes long. Tip, skip the long intro.
Posted by: Icerigger   2007-03-12 14:18  

#9  Flooded Penthouse...
Posted by: danking_70   2007-03-12 14:16  

#8  Perfect. Cafe Press that slogan onto mugs and bumperstickers and you'll make millions!
Posted by: Seafarious   2007-03-12 12:36  

#7  ...younger, self-absorbed, mass-materialist consumers who are really not aware of anything outside their whatever...

I'm thinking of making this my motto: Not really aware of anything outside my whatever. Whaddaya think?
Posted by: Angie Schultz   2007-03-12 12:25  

#6  "younger, self-absorbed, mass-materialist consumers who are really not aware of anything outside their whatever,"

Yes, Paddington. Do tell.
Posted by: tu3031   2007-03-12 11:18  

#5  Paddington is very bearish, it seems.
Posted by: Grunter   2007-03-12 11:15  

#4  Man, some people just don't have enough to worry about.
And if my parents had named me Paddington, I'd use some of the money to buy a gun and hunt them down...
Posted by: tu3031   2007-03-12 11:02  

#3  She'll use the profits to stockpile black-market incandescent lightbulbs.
Posted by: Seafarious   2007-03-12 10:53  

#2  Isn't it, like, unethical for her to sell that penthouse when she knows it's gonna be flooded? And she made all that money doing it. Isn't that, like, hypocritical? Oh, right, she's going to donate the profits to Al Gore.

/sarcasm
Posted by: Elmereter Hupash6222   2007-03-12 10:35  

#1  Zwigard is obviously a first class idiot, and no, that doesnt prove flooding from global warming wont be a problem.

But anyone with an IQ above 70 should be able to figure out that lower Manhattan, with some of the highest real estate values on the planet, will, if need be, end up protected by a sea wall, even at considerable expense.

Its lowlying farmland in places like Bangladesh, where youd need the entire countrys GDP (and then some) to build seawalls, that would be the problem.
Posted by: liberalhawk   2007-03-12 10:24  

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