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Project Summary
Bluie West
The lines blur between climate change and reality.
Bluie West makes them clear.
An Action/Adventure Epic Film Series using
Global Warming Psychology Solutions
to Enhance Climate Change Awareness
Bruce Melton PE
8103 Kirkham, Austin, Texas 78736
512 799-7998 [email protected]
Climate Change Now Initiative, 501c3
www.ClimateDiscovery.org
Bluie West
Project Summary
Contents
Introduction
Synopsis
Background
Global Warming Psychology
Raison D’etre
Film Project Concept
Cast Selection
Music
Additional Films
Appendices
Appendix A: Cast
Appendix B: Scientific Basis and References
Appendix C: Melton’s Credentials
3
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Introduction
This story takes place 20 years in the future. Its grand Orwellian twist is that the science and
impacts are all happening today. The reason that climate things happening today can be
portrayed as fiction happening in the future is that the perceived climate change debate,
created by the $900 million a year climate change counter-movement (CCCM), has so crippled
current climate science outreach that media reporting has been strongly compromised. (1, 2) A
very significant proportion of factual current climate science and impacts happening now are
virtually unknown outside of academia. The main mission of the Climate Change Now Initiative
is to communicate these unknown current scientific findings to the public.
The peer reviewed research findings tell this story far better than any other source available,
but very few can or are willing to interpret the literature. A few climate scientists have written a
few books that come close, but in general, all other sources are created by advocates and not
scientists. This is the great disconnection we hear about in climate science that the CCCM
effectively utilizes to discredit and create doubt where none should exist. Scientists are not
public communicators. The disconnection is so extreme that the CCCM tell us the cost of
solutions will break our economies when they will instead earn trillions in revenue and value.
(3)
At the same time the perceived debate has masked the reality of the solutions, it has created a
media bias that under reports the actual impacts happening today and the extremeness of
projections for the future. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has now
defined climate pollution treatment sufficient to avoid dangerous climate change as including
strong removal of carbon dioxide already in our atmosphere. In other words, emissions
reductions alone are no longer adequate. (4)
Despite the efforts of those that would rather we not believe the vast majority of climate
scientists, awareness today has slowly progressed. A significant majority of us believe that
climate change is happening and most of those believe impacts will be bad in the future. But
almost universally, the public’s perception of current climate science and ongoing impacts is 20
years behind. (5)
Bluie West gives us a mechanism to exploit this counter intuitive characteristic of the public’s
understanding of climate science today. The new discipline of global warming psychology has
outlined a path to create increased awareness through cinematic production and the use of
believable story telling by authoritative figures. (6)
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Very important to this concept is the understanding that the project does not showcase climate
induced catastrophe. This type of outreach can backfire and actually increase skepticism. (7)
This story is about a plausible societal revolution set in motion by climate change impacts
caused by decades of governmental leadership almost entirely influenced by money and
ignorance of science. The plausibility comes from the cultural revolution of the 1960s that was
instigated or significantly enhanced by the unjust war in Vietnam.
The authority of the film is provided by the biggest celebrities in the business, both musical and
cinematic. Many play themselves, 20 years older, in primary and supporting roles. Others,
mostly younger, play a large number of primary roles. A broad spectrum of actors and music
genres in a very large cast, increases the penetration of the film, which increasing awareness
even further.
The celebrities also perform another unprecedented and extraordinary function. This project is
nonprofit. The stars donate their time and resources for pre and post production. Profits go to
either continuing the project until success is achieved in treating climate pollution and or to the
installation of an affordable climate pollution treatment infrastructure.
Academic work supporting the science and global warming psychology presented in this project
is found in Appendix C, Scientific Basis and References.
Synopsis
Twenty years in the future our climate has changed. Deniers and delayers rule the world. Two
years prior to the film, mega hurricane Gwyn struck New York City, killed tens of thousands and
created a mega recession. Just after Gwyn, a documentary film crew (Bluie West) published an
innovative science rockumentary that featured an obscure band (Delta) that played music
about climate issues. The timing was perfect; the band went viral. Bluie West’s continued
filmwork drove a societal revolution supporting Delta and their message. But then, mysterious
fatal accidents occurred during tour performances and the tour was cancelled.
The film begins after the tour was cancelled: Documentary work continues in Greenland,
sponsored by a group of wealthy celebrities who want the tour to resume. Research happens
deep in the ice sheet and as a blizzard rages an intern is lost and found. An icefjord ice jam
releases in a life-changing, climate pollution induced cataclysm. (8) All but the project’s moral
compass and leader (Hanna Jury, Bluie West Producer) are moved to agree to resume the tour.
A hundred of the world’s biggest celebrities gather on the eroding Padre Island for an elaborate
surprise beach party and convince Hanna to go on, supported by $3.5 billion from the newly
formed Save Earth Insurers (SEI). (9)
One million attend the return to the tour in Central Park. Gunman shooting fake guns on the
floor cause mass panic with 71 fatalities. Sierra, one of fourteen young people (the kids)
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comprising parts of Bluie, the band and crew, suffers a serious compound fracture of the leg
when she is crushed filming in the audience when the panic occurs.
The U.S. Congress bans Delta performances. Protests and violence like never before begin in
the U.S. The kids use hacked face recognition software, ultra HD video and an illicit FBI database
to identify a suspect (Thorogood) associated with a Nigerian energy conglomerate (Black
Diamond). At the Vienna performance, Delta’s young sound tech Madison is shot while
pursuing Thorogood. Fake gunman again attack on the floor. This time the crowd fights back
and all are captured.
Protests and violence go worldwide, massive occupations decimate major city infrastructures.
Military control is limited for fear of extreme violence with the unprecedented crowds. The
World and U.S. Councils of Mayors meet in emergency session. SEI deploys investigative teams
in cooperation with Interpol and the suspects and Black Diamond are connected to Baltimore.
The next event is a three day festival at Przystanek Woodstock in Poland drawing over 2 million.
The kids discover a new suspect (Lovemoore), by streaming video to their software during the
event. Leaf, and Emily, structural engineer for Delta and Camera two for Bluie, confront the
massive Lovemoore in his food trailer (Kung Foods). Lovemoore presses a secret button, runs,
and Leaf and Emily pursue. At the edge of the woods, Lovemoore breaks Leaf’s face with a
sucker punch and escapes. Suddenly, a massive 150 dB sonic attack begins as loud as the
military sound weapons. It is broadcasted on the phones of over two million, incapacitating
everyone at the event with extreme pain. (10)
Emily and Leaf somehow make it back to Kung Foods during the attack; find the transmitter,
dump a large stockpot of water on it and it explodes, seriously injuring the two but stopping the
attack.
At a 500 media person press conference the next day, 100 of the world’s most cherished
celebrities are in bleachers behind the leaders of Bluie, Delta and SEI who are answering
questions. Word comes across social that the emergency meetings of the combined global
mayors councils have convinced the U.S. Congress to enact emergency climate pollution law
limiting emissions to Kyoto Era treaty levels from the early 1990s.
The victory is won, it came at tremendous global costs, the climate pollution limits are very
weak; but it’s finally a start after over 40 years.
Background
Our society has demonstrated that science knowledge cannot influence climate policy in time
frames that matter. Because of this failure, impacts are up to 100 years ahead of projections.
(11) This film project uses global warming psychology to create outreach that has the distinct
possibility of not only enhancing climate science awareness, but ending the climate pollution
challenge once and for all.
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The Climate Change Now Initiative (501c3) has been interpreting academic climate science
literature, observing documented changes happening in the field, and performing outreach
between academia and the public since 2004. Our mission is to act as a knowledge liaison to
communicate climate science to the public in plain English. Our productions includes the
written word, experimental documentaries and music. We have created outreach that includes:
about 400 plain-English reports on the latest scientific findings, and a book about 42 of these
recent findings; an experimental music documentary about Greenland melt and sea level rise
on Padre Island, and another about the great North American pine beetle attack; numerous
short films; 60 popular press articles, and 36 songs. The Initiative’s web knowledge resource
(http://www.climatediscovery.org) focuses on the latest climate discoveries and global
warming psychology.
All of the science in the world will not amount to much unless it is presented in a manner that
can make a difference. Today’s perceived debate has been highly orchestrated and funded in
truly unbelievable amounts by the climate change counter-movement. To overcome the
propaganda, misinformation and scientific credibility destruction, cutting edge psychology is
required.
You do not need to be told of the importance of climate change in our society today, but the
magnitude of this importance may surprise you. Let me give you a very recent, very local
example of what is at stake and then lay out the psychology and the global warming psychology
concept that has driven this story design.
You know we just experienced a lot of unprecedented flooding in the Austin region. I am a
professional engineer and hydrologist and I took the time to evaluate some primary
engineering modeling to illustrate how much more extreme rainfall events could become on a
warmer planet.
National Weather Service Technical Paper 40, produced in 1962, identifies the frequency and
intensity or rainfall events across the U.S. You surely have heard of the 100-year storm. This
document defines the 100, as well as the 50-year storm, the 25, 10, 5, 2, 1 and six month
storms. It also describes the 500-year storm and something called the PMP or Possible
Maximum Precipitation event (PMP). This is exactly as it sounds. The PMP is the most rain that
could physically fall, all things being maximized: temperature, humidity and atmospheric
dynamics. (12)
TP40 tells us that the 6-hour, 100-year storm for Austin is seven inches, the 6-hour 500-year
storm is nine inches and the 6-hour PMP is 31 inches. This is not to say that we will see 31
inches of rain in six hours, but it does relate the 40 percent increase in extreme storms Austin
has seen with 1 degree Fahrenheit of warming relative to what we could expect with the IPCC
2013 suggested nine degree Fahrenheit increase in Austin by 2100. (13) The headroom our
climate has to become even more extreme is large. Heat extremes in Texas have already
increased 10 to 100 times in the last 30 years. (14) In the U.S. southeast, droughts and floods
have doubled in the last 30 years. (15)
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Global Warming Psychology
Global warming psychology logic tells us that if we as a society actually understood the risks,
climate pollution mitigation would have happened a long time ago. If we can convince enough
people of the importance and magnitude of climate pollution, change will happen. But the
climate change counter-movement, sponsored by the fossil fuel industrial complex (FFIX), has
systematically undermined these prospects.
Research from Drexel and Stanford describes the $900 million a year climate change countermovement; “A deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the
public’s understanding of climate change.” The paper concludes; “To accomplish [their] goal in
the face of massive scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change has meant the
development of an active campaign to manipulate and mislead the public over the nature of
climate science and the threat posed by climate change.” (see reference 6)
The burgeoning new field of global warming psychology tells us that the most effective way to
change public opinion is through personal impacts, storytelling, and authority figures. We
cannot afford to wait for personal impacts to create the needed awareness so we must turn to
storytelling and authority figures.
The stories can be about anything as long as there is some association with climate related
issues. Climate impact stories are good, local climate impact stories are better. Stories of
personal relationships and challenges, set in the world of the climate change issues, may be the
best because they combine known emotional reactions within in a framework (of climate
change). This relationship reinforces learning.
Credibility is important. Believability is a must. Credibility can be communicated through
authority figures much more efficiently than simply through citation. Believability is more
difficult with the perceived debate and that is why the Raison D’etre and Film Concept
presented below are so important.
Authority Figures: The one group of individuals with vast authority in our society today; that has
the proven motivation to act on environmental and social issues; that can produce massive
creative projects on a global scale; and has the resources to pursue these behaviors, is our
entertainment celebrities.
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Raison D’etre
Current outreach has failed to make reasonable or meaningful changes to climate pollution policy on
Earth regardless of a generation of effort. The FFIX is so broad and well funded, their authority figures so
trusted: radically new techniques must be tried. It is already too late to save Earth as we know it. Vast
and irreversible impacts are already underway. But we can prevent impacts far more extreme if we act
in time frames that matter.
If we can’t get them (the public) to understand the existence or the
significance of critical climate pollution impacts already happening today, but
they are willing to believe that climate change will be bad in the future, let’s
create innovative outreach (film and music) that shows today’s impacts in the
future.
A real and honest depiction of future climate change is as yet unknown in our world.
The convoluted act presenting fact as fiction (unknown to the viewer), provides a
plausible depiction of what is known to be true in the future but we as a people have
yet been able to grasp. That these depictions are true today is relatively minor. The
first step is to provide a mental picture of the unknown. Deeper thought can follow.
The Film Project Concept
This film project will be a defining cinematic experience of our time. The sheer number of leading
celebrities participating will ensure this outcome. The story is not really important and can be changed
as needed—the resources of the large sponsoring community will ensure the story alone is worthy of a
defining cinematic experience.
The story embodies a future global social phenomenon, the ethical and moral challenges that arise from
complications to the central theme, as well as the personal interactions, personal and group challenges,
and love found in any story.
A world impacting conflict triggers a global emotional and social revolution. It
is born out of the ability of music to communicate; not only the pureness and
good of music, but the communication of social, political, moral, and ethical
issues. It has happened before; the Vietnam War.
The principals of global warming psychology will be used to frame the project. Trusted authority figures
tell the story in an unprecedented way. The science is believable because fact is treated as future fiction.
The story has a broad base of support from a wide and voluminous selection of celebrities. It is
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nonprofit, there is no monetary motivation. The celebrities not only perform gratis, they fund initial pre
and post production.
The audience will be led to believe the science is fiction, or that it is model projections of the future.
Even though the science is happening now, virtually nobody knows. The more believable nature of these
things happening in the future will give the story credibility. Actual events, times and places will instill
plausibility to the story even if fact is portrayed as fiction. The thing we are after is genuineness. It’s the
main tenet of the climate change counter-movement. If it is not believable, how can it be real?
The climate change counter-movement uses the unbelievableness of man-caused climate change to
discredit climate science. It doesn’t have to be fact to be believable. By setting these unbelievable—but
factual—impacts that are happening today in a future setting, they become believable.
As time moves on, viewers (and reviewers) will catch on, but it will likely be an underground type of
realization. There will be media coverage of this strange fiction that is really fact happening now, but
there is no scandal in portraying the truth as fiction and press will be minor. But the underground
realization that it is fact being portrayed as fiction does give the story more weight. As the story
progresses into film after film, this realization grows.
The project is nonprofit and it is widely advertised as such. A for-profit project of this sort is ethically
inappropriate. A nonprofit project has more authority with philanthropic efforts. In addition, the put
back that comes from nonprofit issue work lends even more authority to the importance and immediacy
of uncontrolled climate pollution—the greatest issue of our time.
Vendors and working people all get paid, but like the tour in the film, this is a nonprofit effort. Our
fabulous celebrity heroes play themselves as the philanthropists they are; capable of funding an
unprecedented work such as this.
Ticket prices will be low, mirroring the low concert ticket price of the story and allowing more to
participate than would have otherwise. Profits will continue production of additional films until climate
pollution control success is achieved, and or profits will be invested in a climate pollution treatment
infrastructure (costs are much less expensive than are perceived by the public and even much less than
are perceived by almost all environmental advocates. See Reference 3.)
The Cast
The huge number of celebrities playing themselves or characters would be ridiculous if this was an
ordinary film project, but this is no ordinary project. The vast array of trusted celebrities taking part in
such an effort will broaden the reach of the audience, increasing awareness enhancement.
The specific actors and musicians who portray themselves and primary and secondary roles are not in of
themselves important. Their selection process is important though and it depends on: their proven
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track record of supporting environmental conservation and socially philanthropic efforts, their specific
effort as and the magnitude of those efforts relative to climate change, their motivation to participate,
and the size and scope of their individual audience. i.e. Wiley Nelson will have a greater audience than
The Red Hot Chile Peppers. Those chosen to play roles have been selected through filtering for
appropriate philanthropy and the authors limited knowledge of casting. A detailed list of celebrities
filtered for appropriate philanthropic work is provided in Appendix B.
The Music
“Music is a moral law.” - Plato
“Where words fail, music speaks.” - Hans Christian Andersen
“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” - Bob Marley
“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” - Victor Hugo
“Music can change the world because it can change people.” - Bono
“Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through
music.” - Jimi Hendrix
“Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.” - Ludwig van Beethoven
“Music is the shorthand of emotion.” - Leo Tolstoy
“Music is the universal language of mankind.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“This machine kills fascists.” - Woody Guthrie
The music presented in this script comes from the band Climate Change, fronted by Bruce Melton.
Melton, like the rest of the members of the band, has been an amateur musician for forty years or
thereabouts. They have played together since 2001 and began playing climate issue songs, mostly
written by Melton, in 2007. Their climate songs are simply blues, rock, folk and jazz with climate issue
lyrics.
It was in 2007, Melton learned he was an engineer singer-songwriter while filming on the Greenland Ice
sheet. The band has created over three dozen original song, scores the Initiative’s films, and plays out
for special events. After playing together for thirteen years they are a good band, which is fairly
common in Austin.
Like the choice of actors and musicians, the songs, their lyrics and melodies are not really important
except in that they are well executed and include a broad range of genres. It is the presentation of the
songs as a part of an entertainment phenomenon that will create demand for the music, and propagate
the additional benefits that a widely appreciated score add to a film story that also enhance outreach.
The band likes to call them data rich songs and they are significantly unique in the music industry.
Whatever they are called, however they are written and whoever performs them, they put climate stuff
in the minds of listeners. If this stuff is delivered with enough authority, it has weight.
Musical guests featured in the project will also be asked to write material specifically for this project.
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Additional Films in the Series
Additional films in the series will draw from a vast array of unknown climate science and impacts
happening now. Every year the droughts, fires and floods get more extreme. Ninety-two million acres of
forest have been decimated in the North American Rockies by a native pine beetle gone berserk because
of warming. Huge swaths of the subarctic and arctic have been devastated by permafrost melt leaving a
chaotic and pockmarked earth surface where the ice has melted and run away or evaporated. Methane
gas expulsions from the ocean floor in Arctic seas north of Siberia are greater than all of the rest of the
world’s oceans combined. The Amazon has already shifted from a carbon sink to a carbon source. Huge
underice sea channels funnel water into the depths of the Greenland ice sheet. Half-mile high tsunamis
were created by sea level rise induced massive volcanic island mega submarine landslides when Earth
was about the same temperature as today, 120,000 years ago.
The FFIX and their money always win it seems. It only takes a few months for things to return to
business as usual. In successive films, a triggering event sets the revolution afire once more, and the
band returns to the tour with their boundless array of celebrity sponsors and friends.
The James Bond-esque attacks resume, the kids of Bluie and Delta show up the professional
investigators. Unbelievable fact is portrayed as fiction. The perps are blown up in fiery explosions. An
Election introduces a new crop of politicians with their campaign promises. Celebrities die for the cause.
Until the climate pollution challenge is solved in real life, the film series can, and must go on.
Appendix A
Bluie West Cast
Note: Almost all of the roles could be played by whoever the
casting professionals think appropriate. This reference was used
to coordinate the large number of roles in writing the script
and most importantly, to keep track of the celebrities
environmental records. It is imperative that the philanthropists
with proven records be used in this project.
SEI (Save Earth Insurers)
Alec Baldwinn -- Alec Baldwinn
Susan Sarandon -- Susan Sarandon
Leonardo DiCaprio -- Leonardo DiCaprio
Kristin Wiig -- Kristin Wiig
Pharrel Williams – Pharrel Williams
Plus lots of other music and film stars that show up throughout
the film: George Clooney, Pierce Brosnan
Security Director: (Elias “Tank” Mueller) played by Arnold
Schwarzenegger, is a well-seasoned, rock solid security expert
with a persistent German accent.
Medical Director: (Addison Montgomery) Kate Walsh plays here
television drama series role as an independently wealthy doctor
of medicine.
Film Crew Bluie West 1
- Producer (Hanna Jury) Julia Roberts is a pretty, 40-something,
strong, focused and motherly beacon of sincerity, with a
priceless smile and a lifetime of dedication to climate change
outreach.
- Director (Zachary Dean) tall, blond, lean and geeky, original
lead singer and songwriter for the band with a PhD in global
warming psychologist
- Narrator (Morgan Freeman) as Morgan Freeman
- Camera 1 (Jacob Jury) – Ed Norton is Hanna’s older brother, an
NGO CEO turned environmental crusader.
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- Camera 2 (Emily Stands Tall) Emma Stone plays a quiet, young
Native American dedicated to environmental filmwork.
- Sound (Madison Clapton) Jennifer Lawrence, pretty resolute and
easily amused, an award winning indie filmmaker in high school.
- Lighting (Zeek Donovan) Malcolm Ford is young, beach blond,
tan, and energetic and loyal in every way
- Grip 1 (Sierra Nevada) Naomi Watts brilliant youngest/Dylan
- Grip 1 (Dylan Boseman) dependable youngest/Sierra
Electrical (Samantha Tull)
Film Crew Bluie West 2
- Director (Darla Petrova) Daryl Hanna, a veteran of the film
industry, came on with Bluie West shortly after the band went
global, specializes in music videos and films for young adults.
- Camera 1
- Camera 2 (Dakota De Beauvoir) Dakota Johnson plays another of
Darla’s young film maker prodigies, shy and very experienced for
her age.
- Sound (Cherokee Morgan) Bindi Irwin plays this part as the
child of long-time studio technicians in the music industry that
took up the art at an early age.
- Lighting and Electrical (Nicholas (Nic) Broeker) is actually
the grandson of one of the world's first climate scientists
specializing in ocean currents who was an old friend of Zach and
Hanna's
- Grip (Ryan Petrova) is Darla’s son, following in his mother’s
path.
- Grip (Sarah Brown) Jennette McCurdy an award winning young
filmmaker from austin
The Band
- Lead Singer (Billy Bonham) Adam Levine, a 30 something marine
biologist and foraminifera specialist with a love for music,
performance and a deep understanding of global warming
psychology from years of academic collaboration with Mac
-Lead Guitar and backup vocals (Jimmy Flannery) Jimmy Fallon
could be the third host on Wayne’s World
-Rhythm Guitar and vocals (Verhonica Dance) Rihanna, a curious,
active and helpful band member and former environmental
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activist.
-Base (Jose Cortez) Jose Menendez, a joker, working on PhD in
tempestology
-Keys (Makayla Kalani) plays keys and is studying for her masters
focusing on mega submarine landslides.
-Drums (Matt Martin) Ken Adams is the band’s drummer, an overly
quiet student of philosophy, helped Zach write songs about
climate change when he was a baby.
-Band Manager: (Woody Harrelson) Woody Harrelson
-Press: (Maria Ramirez) Evangeline Lilly a savy 30 something
professional marketer who is a bit out of her league in the
wilderness
-Engineer: (Leaf Erickson) Suma Cum Laude structural engineer
Penn State, recently graduated and certified.
-Megascreen Graphics: (Valorie Bernoulie) a wheat raising farm
girl from Kansas.
-Megascreen Graphics: (Benny Donati) a tough inner city kid from
Chicago
-Rigger 1 (Noah)
-Rigger 2
Supporting roles:
-Labor crew leader, Santiago Garcia, a 50 something local crew
leader that speaks fair English
-Labor crew; four locals that speak no English.
-Donna Drew, old Jury family friend in Washington DC.
Friends
-News anchor: (Brian Williams), Brian Williams
-Computer Hacker, Elli O’Donnell (Elizabeth Olsen), geeky thick
glasses, vintage clothes, went to high school with Madison.
-Computer Hacker, Yusuf Kaya, twenty something, sly, strong and
handsome Turk, Elli’s friend.
- Ice sheet specialist (cryologist) MAC MACMURTRY, University of
Texas, Matthew McConaughey is an academic adventurer with a
large serious side. Worked with Zach when he was writing his
dissertation and have been close since, collaborating
occasionally.
-Ice dynamics specialist of the ORA VANDERPOOL is a quiet
proficient principal investigator of the moulin work in the
film.
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-Atmospheric chemist and cloud modeler ROGER DEAN is a rather
large happy looking guy with a sense of humor who you would
never believe has two PhDs.
-Paleochemist (AUGUST AUGUSTINE), Mark Ruffalo, calm academic
type, grew up with Hanna and Zach
-Ice Sheet Dynamics, British Antarctic Survey, (Ora Vanderpool)
Salma Hayek
-Director of the Arctic Council (Charles ) Theo Suluk
-Beach dynamics specialist (Ann Pruitt, Texas A&M Corpus
Christi,) Reese Witherspoon
-PhD Candidate in marine ice shelf dynamics (Samantha Everdeen)
played by Scarlet Johansen from Ohio State.
-PhD recent grad, New York City College, autonomous underwater
sensing (Raj Gupta) Dev Patel plays a poor but brilliant young
man from Gandhi Nagar, Gujarat, India, had to stow away on a
container ship to reach America where he had been accepted to
Yale New York City College to study polar ice.
-Global Warming Psychology, Yale, (Brenner Anderson) Robert
Redford
Music Friends:
-Willie Nelson: (Willie Nelson)
-Pharrell Williams
Celebrities Lineups:
Montage 1: Leonardo Dicaprio, Cate Blanchet, Madona, Avril
Levine, Ian Somerheld, Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, Malin Akerman,
Hugh Jackman and Gwyneth Paltro. Brad Pitt, Dave Mathews, Pierce
Brosnan.
Montage 2: Adrian Grenier, Natalie Portman, Salma Hayek, Cameron
Diaz, Penelope Cruz, Orlando Bloom, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zooey
Deschanel, Depak Chopra, Heidi Klume, Josh Hatnett, Kristen Bell
Central Park Bands: Pharrell Williams, Jay Z, Snoop Dogg,
Will.i.am and Linkin Park open at noon and play for three hours.
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Wilco, the Black Keys and Foo Fighters play for an hour and half
each. The tour continues with its tradition of staging leading
local talent at the front of the stage between band changes.
Woodstock lineup: Foo Fighters, Jay Z, Snoop Dogg, Linkin Park,
U2, Lady Gaga, My Morning Jacket, Madonna, Avril Levine, Sting,
Tim McGraw, Jason Mraz, Usher, Fallout Boys, Radiohead, Drake,
Phish, the Roots, Guster, Barenaked Ladies, Dave Mathews Band,
Jack Johnson, KT Tunstall
Miscellaneous Philanthropic References for Character Selection:
Live Earth September 2015: Pharrell Willimas and Al Gore: "Live
Earth" producer Kevin Wall team up for 'Live Earth' concerts for
climate change. Snoop Dogg, Rihanna, Metallica, Genesis and Bon
Jovi.
http://liveearth.org/event
Eminem, Connect 4 Climate (C4C) Video
http://www.connect4climate.org/blog/times-square
Young celebrities with an climate change record:
Hayden Panettiere
Amanda Bynes
Hilary Duff
Zac Efron
Adrian Greniere 1976
Josh Harnett 1978
Kristen Bell 1980
Mary-Kate Olsen 1987
Sierra Club Letter
http://action.sierraclub.org/site/DocServer/Sign_On_Letter_Final
.pdf?docID=12281
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Adam Levine
Alec Baldwin
Alicia Silverstone
Bonnie Raitt
Darren Aronofsky
Edward Norton
Edward James Olmos
Elle Macpherson 50
Evangeline Lilly 35
Ian Somerhalder 35
Jack Johnson 35
Jason Mraz 36
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Incubus
Linkin Park
Malin Akerman 34
Michael Franti
Morgan Freeman
My Morning Jacket
Ozomatli
Phillipe Cousteau
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Russell Simmons
Susan Sarandon
Tom Steyer
Woody Harrelson
Yoko Ono
Add:
Artists Against Fracking
http://artistsagainstfracking.com/artists/
Abena Koomson
Bethany Yarrow
Adam Greene
Bill Frisell
Alec Baldwin
Bill Migliore
Amanda Palmer
Black Keys
Amy Ryan
Black Twig Pickers
Amy Sohn
Bon Iver
Animal Liberation
Bonnie Raitt
Orchestra
Brad Mehldau
Anne Hathaway 1999
Brazilian Girls
Carrie Fisher
Anthony Ed
Charlotte Kemp
Jessica Alba
Muhl
Beast Patrol
Chris Maxwell
Beastie Boys
Cibo Matto
Cindy Sherman
Beck
Conor Oburst
Ben Perowsky
Corn Mo
Ben Tyree
Dan Fogler
Darren Aronofsky
46
Daryl Hanna
David Byrne
David Crosby
David Fiuczynski
David Geffen
David Lang
David Sitek
Deborah Eisenberg
Deepak Chopra
Deerhoof
Devendra Banhart
Donald Fagen
Dub Trio
Dustin Yellin
Bluie West Cast references – Philanthropy
Elephant Revival
Eric “Roscoe”
Ambel
Flea
Flobots
FonLin Nyeu
Fred Armisen
G Tom Mac
Gene Ween
George Saunders
Glen Hansard
Gotham Chopra
Graham Nash
Greg Bissonette
Greg Rolie
Greta Seacat
Gwyneth Paltrow
Hahn Rowe
Harper Simon
Hugh Jackman
Indigo Girls
Ingrid Sischy
Irina Lazareanu
Jackson Browne
Jake Hoffman
Jamie Saft
Janet Feder
Jay Dee Daugherty
Jeff Koons
Jenny Scheinman
Jesse Harris
Jimmy Fallon
Joe Walsh
Joel Hamilton
Joel Rafael
John Cameron
Mitchell
John Zorn
Johnny Irion
Jonathan Marc
Sherman
Joseph GordonLevitt
Josh Fox
Judy Kuhn
Julian Lage
Julian Lennon
Julianne Moore
Justin Bond
Karen Elson
Katelan Foisy
Kathleen Hanna
Keith Secola
Kim Gordon
Kronos Quartet
Kyoko Ono Cox
Lady Gaga
Lee Ranaldo
Lenny Kaye
Liv Tyler
Lowell Boyers
Malcolm Ford
Marina Abramovic
Mario Batali
Mark Rivera
Mark Ronson
Mark Ruffalo
Martha Colburn
Martha Stewart
Martha Wainwright
Medeski, Martin
and Wood
Meredith Monk
MGMT
Michael Pollan
Mike Watt
Monica Heidimann
My Morning Jacket
Nadia Dajani
Nancy Shevell +
Paul
McCartney
Natalie Merchant
Nels Cline
Nico Muhly
Nicole Bonelli
Noah Emmerich
Patti Smith Group
Peter Coyote
Polyphonic Spree
Questlove
Ralph Gibson
Richard Gere
Richard Page
Ringo Starr
Roberta Flack
Roberto De Niro
Ron Delsner
Rosario Dawson
Rubblebucket
Rufus Cappadocia
Rufus Wainwright
Page |7
Ryan Sawyer
Ryuichi Sakamoto
Salman Rushdie
Sandra Brant
Sara Lee Guthrie
Scissor Sisters
Scott Amendola
Scott Harding
Sea Wolf
Sean Ono Lennon
Sim Redmond Band
St. Vincent
Stephanie & Warren
Haynes
Steve Cardenas
Steve Lukather
Steve Shelley
Steven Tyler
Stuwart Hurwood
Susan Sarandon
Sxip Shirey
Talia Lugacy
The B-52′s
The Flaming Lips
The Present
The Strokes
Thomas Bartlett
Three As Four
Thurston Moore
Tim Robbins
Todd Reynolds
Todd Rundgren
Tom Noonan
Tom Waits
Tommy Hawk Wilson
III
Tony Shanahan
Trevor Wilson
Tune-Yards
Uma Thurman
Vernon Reid
Vincent Gallo
Wallace Shawn
White Out
Wilco
Will Bernard
Yo La Tengo
Yoko Ono
Zooey
Deschaneltists
Global Warming Charity and Foundation Supporters
https://www.looktothestars.org/charity/stop-global-warming
Al Gore
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Bonnie Raitt
Christie Brinkley
Hillary Clinton
Incubus
Jeffrey Sachs
Jon Bon Jovi
Julia Louis Dreyfus
Leonardo DiCaprio
Sheryl Crow
Steve Nash
Terra Naomi
Tony Hawk
Walter Cronkite
AllAmericanspeakers.com http://www.allamericanspeakers.com/Green_Celebrities_&_Green_Speakers.php

Casey Affleck

Jackie Chan

Blythe Danner

Fergie

Christina Aguilera

Good Charlotte

Ted Danson

Mike Ferrell

Margaret Atwood

Chevy Chase

Green Day

Will Ferell

Corinne Bailey Rae

Don Cheadle

Rosario Dawson

Foo Fighters

Alec Baldwin

Soweto Gospel Choir

Robert DeNiro

Colin Firth

Tyra Banks

Eric Clapton

Emily Deschanel

Calista Flockhart

Jimmy Barnes

Kelly Clarkson

Danny DeVito

arrison Ford

Ed Begley, Jr.

George Clooney

Cameron Diaz

Bill Gates

Cate Blanchett

Coldplay

Leonardo DiCaprio

Richard Gere

Orlando Bloom

Monique Coleman

Snoop Dogg

Ricky Gervais

Jon Bon Jovi

Toni Collette

Minnie Driver

Balthazar Getty

Bono

Chris Cornell

David Duchovny

Jane Goodall

Ian Botham

Kevin Costner

Hilary Duff

Kelsey Grammer

Beastie Boys

Simon Cowell

Kirsten Dunst

Adrian Grenier

Richard Branson

Peter Coyote

Eagles

Christopher Guest

Beau Bridges

Daniel Craig

The Edge

Jake Gyllenhaal

Christie Brinkley

James Cromwell

Tracey Emin

Paul Haggis

Pierce Brosnan

Sheryl Crow

Melissa Etheridge

Brad Hall

Gisele Bundchen

Penelope Cruz

Morgan Fairchild

Tom Hanks

Gerard Butler

Tim Curran

Perry Farrell

Daryl Hannah
Bluie West Cast references – Philanthropy
Page |9

Woody Harrelson

Julia Louis Dreyfus

Ozzy Osbourne

Danny Seo

Josh Hartnett

Chad Lowe

Catherine Oxenberg

Shakira

Anne Hathaway

Rob Lowe

Suchin Pak

Harry Shearer

Tony Hawk

Isabel Lucas

Gwyneth Paltrow

Martin Sheen

Goldie Hawn

Ludacris

Hayden Panettiere

Jamie-Lynn Sigler

Salma Hayek

Kyle Maclachlan

Linkin Park

Alicia Silverstone

Don Henley

Madonna

Tatjana Patitz

Henry Simmons

Natasha Henstridge

Natalie Maines

Snow Patrol

Scissor Sisters

Damien Hirst

Wendie Malick

Rhea Pearlman

Kelly Slater

Peter Horton

Chris Martin

Sean Penn

Mary Steenbergen

Crowded House

Sal Masekela

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Ben Stiller

Incubus

Debbie Mattenopoulos

Joaquin Phoenix

Sting

Enrique Iglesias

Dave Matthews

Pink

Michael Stipe

Bindi Irwin

John Mayer

Brad Pitt

Joss Stone

Terri Irwin

Melanie C

The Police

Barbra Streisand

Joshua Jackson

Paul McCartney

Natalie Portman

Eliska Sursova

Pearl Jam

Michael McKean

Kelly Preston

Amber Tamblyn

Wyclef Jean

Sarah McLachlan

Emily Procter

Spinal Tap

Billy Joel

John Mellencamp

Smashing Pumpkins

Justin Timberlake

Elton John

Katie Melua

Zachary Quinto

Kostya Tszyu

Jack Johnson

Metallica

Bonnie Raitt

Chris Tucker

Angelina Jolie

Alyssa Milano

Guilana Rancic

U2

Norah Jones

Sienna Miller

Rachael Ray

Lars Ulrich

Jon Bon Jovi

Yao Ming

Razorlight

Steve Vai

Jay-Z

Alanis Morissette

Robert Redford

Casper Van Dien

Jane Kaczmarek

Kathryn Morris

Rob Reiner

Eddie Vedder

Kasabian

Demi Moore

Cliff Richard

The Veronicas

Alicia Keys

Esai Morales

Rihanna

Kanye West

Angelique Kidjo

Viggo Mortensen

Tim Robbins

Bradley Whitford

Nicole Kidman

Terra Naomi

Julia Roberts

Robin Williams

Chris Knights

Niecy Nash

Tony Robinson

John Williamson

Johnny Knoxville

Steve Nash

Chris Rock

Owen Wilson

Lenny Kravitz

Willie Nelson

Meg Ryan

Michelle Wright

Sharon Lawrence

Edward Norton

Jeffrey Sachs

Neil Young

Avril Lavigne

Nunatak

Susan Sarandon

Yusuf

Norman Lear

Emily O'Brien

Joe Satriani

Constance Zimmer

Tommy Lee

Oprah

Arnold Schwarzenegger

John Legend

Ana Ortiz

Amy Sedaris

Jay Leno

Beth Orton

Kyra Sedgwick
Bluie West Cast references – Philanthropy
P a g e | 10
List of bands that supported the global Live Earth Climate
Change concerts in 2007
Alicia Keys, Bon Jovi, Dave Matthews Band, Fall Out Boy, John
Mayer, KT Tunstall, Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, Ludacris,
Melissa Etheridge, Roger Waters, Smashing Pumpkins, The Police,
Beastie Boys, Black Eyed Peas, Bloc Party, Corinne Bailey Rae,
Damien Rice, David Gray, Duran Duran, Foo Fighters, Genesis,
James Blunt, John Legend, Kasabian, Keane, Madonna,
Lots more at the link below:
https://www.looktothestars.org/charity/live-earth
Appendix B
Bluie West: Scientific Basis and References
The references below were accumulated along with thousands of other academic and
institutional works as the fundamental science reference database for ClimateDiscovery.org,
the Climate Change Now Initiative Knowledge Base. References 1 through 15 are from the
Project Summary. Below those are additional references for the script.
1)
Climate Change Counter-Movement (sponsored by the Fossil Fuel Industrial Complex – FFIX)…
(Drexel and Stanford) Seven billion funding from 2003 to 2010, $900 million a year in climate
change counter-movement funding. Fear of extinction has created a twenty year-long campaign
by the wealthiest vested interests in the world. This campaign seeks to delay or even stop
urgent measures needed to control climate pollution. A U.S. National Research Council Report
from 2012 says there is a “A deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion
and distort the public’s understanding of climate change.” Brulle 2013 identifies the start of the
movement in 1989, just after the formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
This latest research has looked at what is now being called the Counter Climate ChangeMovement (CCCM) and just exactly how much money these CCCM entities are pouring into the
“movement.” This research tells us that: “A well organized CCCM … played a major role in
confounding public understanding of climate science, but also successfully delayed meaningful
government policy actions to address the issue.” For 91 of 118 organizations identified Brulle
found $900 million a year in “identified” funding.
Brulle also tells us; “This counter-movement involves a large number of organizations, including
conservative think tanks, advocacy groups, trade associations and conservative foundations,
with strong links to sympathetic media outlets and conservative politicians.” Brulle concludes;
“To accomplish this goal in the face of massive scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate
change has meant the development of an active campaign to manipulate and mislead the
public over the nature of climate science and the threat posed by climate change.”



2)
Brulle, Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate
change counter-movement organizations, Climatic Change, December 21, 2013.
http://www.drexel.edu/~/media/Files/now/pdfs/Institutionalizing%20Delay%20%20Climatic%20Change.ashx
National Research Council, Climate and social stress; implications for security analysis.
National Academy of Sciences, Washington, 2012
http://www.northeastern.edu/policyschool/wp-content/uploads/Steinbruner-et-al.2012-Security-Reading.pdf
The “Fairness Bias” has helped the CCCM diminish the effectiveness of climate science
outreach, reduce scientific credibility and increase confusion… Ensuring fairness and balance
is what the journalistic creed is about. Ensuring fairness in the broadcast media was codified
into law in 1949 with the Fairness Doctrine (and repealed by Reagan in 1987). Journalists and
media personalities only want to be fair and present both sides of a story and the Fairness
Doctrine was adopted to ensure that both sides of an issue are presented equally. This concept
works great with belief-based issues. When belief-based issues are confused with science
reporting, opportunity for bias arises. With climate science, the media are no experts and
cannot tell real science from pseudo-science. The result is that both are reported as if both
were opposing sides to a belief based issue. With climate science one can basically say that the
Page |2
media presents the views of 97 percent of climate scientists that believe climate change is real
equally to the views of the remaining three percent of climate scientists. Mathematically, this
gives the three percent of climate scientists that do not believe a bias that is 16 times the
weight of evidence presented.
 “This paper demonstrates that US prestige-press (New York Times, Washington Post,
Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal) coverage of global warming from 1988 to 2002
has contributed to a significant divergence of popular discourse from scientific
discourse. This failed discursive translation results from an accumulation of tactical
media responses and practices guided by widely accepted journalistic norms. This paper
focuses on the norm of balanced reporting, and shows that the prestige press’s
adherence to balance actually leads to biased coverage of both anthropogenic
contributions to global warming and resultant action.” Boykoff and Boykoff, Balance as
Bias Global warming and the US Prestige Press, Global Environmental Change, 2004,
abstract.
http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/publications/downloads/boykoff04-gec.pdf
 “Only 1 percent of climate scientists rate broadcast or television news as very reliable
and 3 percent rate local newspapers as very reliable, while 26 percent rate Al Gore’s An
Inconvenient Truth as very reliable.”
Lichter, Climate Scientists Agree on Warming, Disagree on Dangers, and Don’t Trust the
Media’s Coverage of Climate Change, George Mason University, STATS, April 2008,
paragraph 12.
http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
 “For years, sceptics have referred to mainstream scientists as alarmists and to
mainstream science as junk science (or similar terms). The above instances of the bad
science concept should be appreciated as a fundamental tool used by sceptics in their
construction of climate change as a controversial issue. This study has shown that by
enlisting the media, climate sceptics continue their ‘very cynical and deeply interested
campaign to discredit the science of climate change’ (Demeritt, 2001, p. 328) and that
these efforts are facilitated by professional journalism practices employed by both
newspapers and wire services.”
Antilla, Climate of skepticism: US newspaper coverage of the science of climate change,
Global Environmental Change, August 3, 2005.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937800500052X
 “The findings indicate that supposed challenges to the scientific consensus on global
warming need to be subjected to greater scrutiny, as well as showing that, if reporters
wish to discuss “both sides” of the climate issue, the scientifically legitimate “other side”
is that, if anything, global climate disruption may prove to be significantly worse than
has been suggested in scientific consensus estimates to date.
Freudenburg and Muselli, Global warming estimates, media expectations and the
asymmetry of scientific challenge, Global Environmental Change, August 2010.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Freudenburg_2010_ASC.pdf
3)
Affordable climate pollution treatment infrastructure… Once again, the CCCM or FFIX has
obliterated appropriate science learning. The academic work supporting feasible air capture of
carbon dioxide far outweighs the work that does not support it. But the FFIX has taken one
biased paper and discussed it far and wide. The paper (American Physical Society) evaluates the
old fashioned 700 degree C technology for flue gas removal using diluted air instead and came
up with predictable results. When asked why they did not evaluate the new 100 degree C or
less technologies they said data didn’t exist, but data obviously exists. None of this made it to
the level of the press however, only the headline that air capture technology is infeasible.
Page |3
The bottom line is that the new technologies start at $200 a ton and can be reduced to (at
least) $20 per ton once fully industrialized. At $200 per ton, to remove 50 ppm CO2 from the
atmosphere and effectively end the climate pollution problem it would cost $21 trillion or a
similar amount to U.S. health care spending from 2001 to 2005. Once fully industrialized the
cost would be $2.1 trillion. We spend a half trillion across the world every year on advertising.
The federal financial bailout in 2008 was $29 trillion.




American Physical Society Study: Direct Air Capture of CO2 with Chemicals, The
American Physical Society, June 2011.
http://www.aps.org/policy/reports/assessments/upload/dac2011.pdf
Evaluation of APS study by Nature:
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/05/sucking_carbon_dioxide_from_ai.html
Advertising: We spend $500 billion every year on advertising across the globe…
eMarketter, Asia-Pacific Poised to Dominate North America as World’s Top Ad Market,
According to ‘Most Comprehensive’ Edition of the eMarketer Global Media Intelligence
Report, October 10, 2012, Chart: Total Media Ad Spending Worldwide by Region. $504
billion spent globally on total media ad spending in 2011, $572 projected in 2013.
http://www.emarketer.com/newsroom/index.php/asiapacific-poised-dominate-northamerica-worlds-top-ad-market-comprehensive-edition-emarketer-global-mediaintelligence-report/
$29 trillion federal bailout… http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_698.pdf
Cost of air capture:



Flue capture $60 per ton, $500 or more for air capture… Section 5.1, paragraph 1: “The
cost of direct CO2 capture from air will highly influence the overall economic feasibility
of the utilization of atmospheric CO2 as carbon feedstock. Using current technologies,
the cost to remove a ton of CO2 from point sources such as a coal burning power plant
that contain 10–15% CO2 has been estimated between $30 and $100. The cost of direct
air capture (DAC) on the other hand varies vastly from about $20 to more than $1000
per ton of CO2.”
Goeppert et al., Air as the renewable carbon source of the future - CO2 Capture from
the atmosphere, Energy and Environmental Science, May 1, 2012.
Abstract only:
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2012/EE/c2ee21586a#!divAbstract
Cost of Air Capture: $200 per ton initially, $30 per ton fully industrialized... Testimony to
the Science, Space and Technology Committee chaired by Lamar Smith, 020410, page 5
first paragraph.
http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/hearings
/020410_Lackner.pdf
Air Capture: Sky Mining Reference…
Goeppert et al., Air as the renewable carbon source of the future - CO2 Capture from
the atmosphere, Energy and Environmental Science, May 1, 2012.
Abstract only:
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2012/EE/c2ee21586a#!divAbstract
$20 per ton (just over) capture and storage… Section 5.1 paragraph 2, “using the
K2CO3/KHCO3 cycle is described as being able to capture CO2 from air for less than $20
per ton. The total cost including sub-surface injection was estimated to be slightly above
$20 per ton.”
$49 to $80 per ton… Section 5.1 paragraph 3: “An air capture system designed by Keith
et al. using a Na/Ca cycle was estimated to cost approximately $500 per ton C ($140 per
ton CO2). The authors added that about a third of this cost was related to capital and
Page |4

4)
maintenance cost. Further development and optimization of the system by Carbon
Engineering Ltd. for the effective extraction of CO2 from air resulted in the decrease of
the estimated cost to $49–80 per tonne CO2.”
$30 per ton long term… Section 5.1, paragraph 5: “Lackner and co-workers developed
an anionic exchange resin able to release CO2 in a moisture swing process. The cost of
only the energy required per ton of CO2 collected was around $15. The initial cost of air
capture including manufacturing and maintenance can be estimated at about $200 per
ton of CO2. However, this cost is expected to drop considerably as more collectors are
built, possibly putting CO2 capture in the $30 per ton range in the long term.”
Conclusion, first paragraph... “Despite its very low concentration of only 390 ppm, the
capture of CO2 directly from the air is technically feasible. Theoretically, CO2 capture
from the atmosphere would only require about 2 to 4 times as much energy as capture
from flue gases, which is relatively modest considering that at the same time the CO2
concentration is decreased by roughly a factor of 250–300.”
50 ppm CO2 for $21 trillion using existing technologies …
Hansen et al., Target Atmospheric CO2 Where Should Humanity Aim? Open
Atmospheric Science Journal, November 2008, page 226 and 227, Section 4.4 Policy
Relevance, page 227, paragraph 1.
“Desire to reduce airborne CO2 raises the question of whether CO2 could be drawn
from the air artificially. There are no large-scale technologies for CO2 air capture now,
but with strong research and development support and industrial scale pilot projects
sustained over decades it may be possible to achieve costs ~$200/tC [81] or perhaps less
[82]. At $200/tC, the cost of removing 50 ppm of CO2 is ~$20 trillion.”
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Hansen_etal_1.pdf
IPCC: Strong removal of carbon dioxide already in our atmosphere; emissions reductions
alone are no longer adequate… Strong Negative Emissions: The IPCC now says that we must
remove greater than 100% of annual emissions in order to avoid dangerous climate change. The
following quote is from the next to the last statement of fact in the 2013 Scientific Basis,
Summary for Policy Makers: "A large fraction of anthropogenic climate change resulting from
CO2 emissions is irreversible on a multi-century to millennial time scale, except in the case of a
large net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere over a sustained period.” Chapter 12 repeats
this statement in different language that adds more meaning and clarification to the Summary
for Policymakers statement. From the summary of Chapter 12 Long-term Climate Change:
Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility, we find: “A large fraction of climate change is
largely irreversible on human time scales, unless net anthropogenic CO2 emissions were
strongly negative over a sustained period.” In this second statement, “strongly negative” tells
us that 100 percent emissions reductions are not adequate. Emissions must be “strongly
negative. Personal communications with coordinating and lead authors reveals that this is not a
quantifiable amount of emissions, yet. It is basically a policy statement. Strongly negative
,means strongly more than 100 percent emissions reductions. Whether or not the answer is
that we must remove twice as much CO2 as we emit every year or three times or more will only
be realized when modeling and climate science progresses beyond where it is today.

Large net removal… IPCC 2013, Summary for Policy Makers, E.8 "Climate Stabilization,
Climate Change Commitment and Irreversibility," p 28, second bullet.
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf

Strongly negative… IPCC 2013, Chapter 12, Long-term Climate Change Projections,
Commitments and Irreversibility, Executive summary, Page 1033, sixth paragraph.
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_ALL_FINAL.pdf
Page |5
5)
Public Climate Science Knowledge is 20 Years Behind… About 60 percent of the American
public “believes” in climate change while 97 percent of climate scientists believe. In 1991,
about 60 percent of climate scientists believed. This puts the public’s understand about 24
years behind the climate scientists. It is a vague comparison, but illustrative.






6)
Gallup, March 30, 2012 In U.S., Global Warming Views Steady Despite Warm Winter:
52% say it has already begun, 29 percent say it will begin in the future.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/153608/global-warming-views-steady-despite-warmwinter.aspx
Pew Center, Modest Rise in Number Saying There Is “Solid Evidence” of Global
Warming, November 9-14, 2011 (Published December 1, 2011) : 63% say there is solid
evidence of global warming. http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/12-111%20Global%20warming%20release.pdf
Yale 2012: Weather extremes caused by climate change have changed public
awareness: 69 % believe global warming is affecting extreme weather in the U.S.
Leiserowitz et al., Extreme-Weather-Climate-Preparedness, Yale Project on Climate
Change Communication, April 2012.
http://www.climateaccess.org/sites/default/files/Leiserowitz_Extreme%20Weather%20
Climate%20Preparedness.pdf
Gallup, March 30, 2012 - Americans' Worries About Global Warming Up Slightly: 61%
believe global warming will pose a serious threat to them in their lifetimes.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/153653/americans-worries-global-warming-slightly.aspx
George Mason University: Climate Scientists Agree on Warming, Disagree on Dangers,
and Don’t Trust the Media’s Coverage of Climate Change, George Mason University,
STATS, 2008. In 1991, 60 percent of climate scientists believed that Earth was warming.
http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
In 1991 only 60% of climate scientists believed that average global temperatures were
up, compared to 97% today. Paragraph 1, bullet 1. Climate Scientists Agree on Warming,
Disagree on Dangers, and Don’t Trust the Media’s Coverage of Climate Change, George
Mason University, STATS, 2008.
http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
Global Warming Psychology: storytelling and authority figures… Global warming psychology
is still hardly a “thing,” but a lot of literature has been published that can be identified with this
brand new field of science. The challenges of communicating climate science are many and
include its rocket science-like complication, the counter intuitiveness that a few degrees of
temperature change could make a difference when our daily temperature changes 100 degrees
or more in many locations across the globe throughout the year, the fact that this has never
occurred to our society and we do not know how to behave, peer pressure from social groups,
religious beliefs, counsel from authority figures, politics, environmentalism biases and the
climate change counter-movement. To address the inability of current outreach to make a
difference in climate science awareness, this new field has arisen to try and evaluate
appropriate solutions to the learning challenge. Authority figures are more valuable than simple
facts--the person delivering the news can create greater awareness if that person has a higher
credibility in the mind of the listener. Trust is imperative—we believe those we trust.
Believability is paramount—regardless of the facts; unbelievable facts are just as unbelievable
as fiction.

“Those who convey a message are traditionally called ‘messengers,’ though in dialogue,
it is probably more appropriate to simply speak of ‘communicators’ or participants in
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

the communication. Messengers are integral aspects of the framing; they are also
critically important in establishing the credibility of the information conveyed.”
Moser, Communicating climate change: history, challenges, process and future
directions, Climate Change, December 22, 2009.
http://www.susannemoser.com/documents/Moser_WIRE_2010.pdf
“A more effective strategy for scientists and science educators should include not only
discourse approaches that enable trust, with emphasis on empowerment through
reasoning skills, but also approaches that embrace the maturing discipline of media
literacy education.”
Cooper, Media Literacy as a Key Strategy Toward Public Acceptance of Climate Change
Science, Bioscience, March 2011.
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/61/3/231.full.pdf
“Political mobilization by elites and advocacy groups is critical in influencing climate
change concern.”
Brulle et al., Shifting public opinion on climate change: an empirical assessment of
factors influencing concern over climate change in the US 2002 to 2010, Climatic
Change, Feb 2012.
http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~brullerj/02-12ClimateChangeOpinion.Fulltext.pdf
Make global warming local and understandable. Lead by example. Address collective
power and leveraging. Make it easy, cool and desirable and incorporate culture and
social values.
Tan, Innovative Climate Change Communication - Team -6 percent, Global Environment
Information Center, United Nations University, October 2008.
http://owj.unu-mc.org/2008/11/wp2008_001.pdf
7)
Climate catastrophe used as outreach can backfire and create greater skepticism… Very
commonly thought to be the only way to increase awareness of climate change issues,
presenting catastrophic projections or depictions of our future climate (or our present) can
have significant negative effects, increasing skepticism instead of decreasing it. Often the
reasoning for increased skepticism is the outlandish way that climate change impacts are
presented such as in the film Day after Tomorrow.
Gains et al., Promoting pro-environmental action in climate change deniers, Nature Climate
change, June 17, 2012.
http://www.climateaccess.org/sites/default/files/Bain_Promoting%20proenvironmental%20action.pdf
8)
Greenland ice discharge has increased 500 percent in the last ten years… The latest 2013 IPCC
Report, Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policy Makers, B.3 Cryosphere, page 7, second
bullet.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WGIAR5_SPM_brochure_en.pdf
9)
Padre Island Erosion… Beach erosion on South Padre Island is already extreme with average
sea level rise in the 5+ mm per year range. Once apparent sea level rise increases past 7 to 10
mm per year, barrier island disintegration begins. This process begins with beach erosion that
moves into the dunes. Storms then fragment the barrier island and the natural beach
replacement process is slowed or overwhelmed leaving a fragmented island. Over time the
fragments erode. Apparent sea level rise takes local conditions into account. That includes
changing coastal currents with changing winds, sand starvation from upstream reservoirs, sand
starvation from jetties and local subsidence from groundwater pumping and oil pumping, and
natural barrier island sediment compaction subsidence. Three major beach areas on South
Padre Island and one on North Padre are now eroding into the dunes during normal non-storm
conditions. Local factors have likely exacerbated the regional sea level rise rate so that these
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local areas are experiencing apparent sea level rise that is greater than the beach disintegration
threshold. The Texas A&M Harte Research Center Geohazards and Geoenvironments of South
Padre Island show a steady progression of the beach into the island. Beginning about the turn
of the century, the beach width began to diminish as sea level rise increased its rate of rise.
South Padre: Harte Research Center Interactive Geohazards mapping:
http://geohazards.tamucc.edu/southpadre/SPI_Small_rez.html#


Sea level rise and the 7 mm per year barrier island disintegration threshold… Padres
Island is a “wave-dominated barrier island” that behaves similarly to wave-dominated
barrier islands on the Atlantic coast of the U.S. Paragraph 3, page 56 of this report
states: “For Scenario 3, it is very likely that the potential for threshold behavior will
increase along many of the mid-Atlantic barrier islands.” Scenario 3 as evaluated in this
report is 7 mm of increasing sea level rise per year.
Coastal Sensitivity to Sea-Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region, U.S. Climate
Change Science Program, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in collaboration
with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), 2009, Chapter 3 Ocean Coasts, 3.7 Potential Changes to the Mid
Atlantic Ocean Coast due to sea level rise, 3.7.3 Wave-Dominated Barrier Islands, pages
55 and 56.
http://tinyurl.com/l9wfs4l
Recent sea level rise rate is double most of the 20th century… The sea level rise rate for
1901 to 1990 has been revised downward through better analysis of old data so that the
rate from 1901 to 1990 of 1.75 mm per year is 31 percent less than previous analyses of
1.2 mm per year. The recent period 1990 to 2010 is still 3.0 mm per year. The previous
increase of the 1190 to 2010 period over the 1901 to 1990 period of 71 percent has now
more than doubled to 150 percent.
Hay, et al., Probabilistic reanalysis of twentieth century sea level rise, Nature, 14093,
January 2015.
(Paywall) http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7535/full/nature14093.html
Press Release: http://www.constantinealexander.net/2015/01/page/4/
10) 150 dB phone hack… Today’s best phones reach 87 dB at one meter. Modeling sound levels for
multiple simultaneous sources using seven distance steps from 25 foot radius to 800 foot
radius, totaling 750,000 discrete sound sources at 87 dB, conservatively yields 155 dB.


Samsung Galaxy Not Edge: 87 dB (one meter):
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Noise-terror---here-are-the-10-smartphones-withthe-loudest-loudspeakers-from-2014_id64287
Distance Calculator:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/acoustic/isprob2.html
Coherent sound level calculator:


http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-coherentsources.htm
Multiple source calculator:
http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-coherentsources.htm
Static and dynamic crowd densities at major public events, Technical Report vfdb TB 1201, German Fire Protection Association, March 2012. Maximum density 5 to 6 persons
per 10.7 square feet (square meter) Average maximum 4 persons per 10.7 square feet.
http://www.vfdb.de/download/TB_13_01_Crowd_densities.pdf
11) Climate Impacts are happening up to 70 years (Arctic sea ice) and 100 years (Antarctic ice
loss) ahead of projections… Arctic Sea Ice decline 70 years ahead of schedule: Summertime
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melting of Arctic sea-ice has ‘‘accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models.’’
Allison 2009, p. 7; see also Stroeve et al., 2007). Using unusually vivid language, the authors
note that the record for previous Arctic sea ice summer minimum extent was ‘‘shattered’’ in
2007, ‘‘something not predicted by climate models . . . This dramatic retreat has been much
faster than simulated by any of the climate models assessed in the IPCC AR4’’—with summer
sea ice now well below the IPCC worst case scenario. Allison 2009, pp. 29–30. Summer
minimum sea ice was higher in subsequent years, but still fell near or below the long-term
observed downward trend (which, as just noted, declines faster than the model predictions).
Then, in 2012, another record minimum was set.
 Allison et al., The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate
Science, University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Center, 2009.
http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/Copenhagen/Copenhagen_Diagnosis_HIGH.pdf
 Stroeve et al, The Arctic’s rapidly shrinking sea ice cover—A research synthesis, Climatic
Change, 110, 1005-1027, 2012, published online June 2011.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/c4m01048200k08w3/fulltext.pdf
 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Technical Basis, Chapter 10 Global Climate Projections,
November 2007, page 771.
Antarctic ice loss is over 100 years ahead of schedule… Antarctic surface mass balance (SMB) in
the 2007 IPCC Report was supposed to increase, not decrease, for all scenarios, through 2100.
This means that snow accumulation was supposed to be more than melt, evaporation and
iceberg discharge combined.
 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fourth Assessment Report, Climate
Change 2001: Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, 10.6.5,
Projections of Global Average Sea Level Change for the 21st Century, Table 10.7.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-6-5.html
 The 2013 IPCC report tells us that Antarctic ice loss has almost caught up with
Greenland… Summary for Policy Makers, E.3 Cryosphere, page 5, third bullet.
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGI_AR5_SPM_brochure.pdf
The literature is replete with evaluations acknowledging that climate scientists err on the side
of conservatism—they understate the risks and concerns of our changing climate.


“Over the past two decades, skeptics of the reality and significance of anthropogenic
climate change have frequently accused climate scientists of ‘‘alarmism’’: of overinterpreting or overreacting to evidence of human impacts on the climate system.
However, the available evidence suggests that scientists have in fact been conservative
in their projections of the impacts of climate change.”
Brysse et al., Climate Change Prediction: Erring on the side of least drama, Global
Environmental Change, 23, November 2012.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378012001215
Personal experience and climate beliefs: “Among the full survey sample, we found that
both processes occurred: ‘experiential learning’, where perceived personal experience
of global warming led to increased belief certainty, and ‘motivated reasoning’, where
high belief certainty influenced perceptions of personal experience. We then tested and
confirmed the hypothesis that motivated reasoning occurs primarily among people who
are already highly engaged in the issue whereas experiential learning occurs primarily
among people who are less engaged in the issue, which is particularly important given
that approximately 75% of American adults currently have low levels of engagement.”
Myers et al., The relationship between personal experience and belief in the reality of
global warming, Nature Climate Change, December 2, 2012.
paywall: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n4/full/nclimate1754.html
Researchgate (free subscription)
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
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/240100735_The_relationship_between_pers
onal_experience_and_belief_in_the_reality_of_global_warming
“Evidence suggests that personal experience is more likely to influence Americans with
no strong beliefs about climate change than those with firm beliefs.”
Weber, Seeing is believing, Nature Climate Change, April 2013.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2293048
12) The PMP, Possible Maximum Precipitation – How much more extreme can rainfall events
become on a warmer planet?... TP-40, or Technical Paper 40 is a piece of fundamental
meteorological science produced by the National Weather Service in 1961 (at the time they
were called the Weather Bureau). This document basically defines intensity, duration and
frequency for rainfall events across the continental U.S. It basically defines what we know as
the 100-year storm. A thing called the PMP, or Possible Maximum Precipitation is defined by
TP-40. The PMP is exactly as it sounds–physically, the most rainfall that could fall. It is a
determination of how much rain could possibly fall if the physical conditions were perfect and
temperature and humidity maxed out. Back in 1961 the Weather Bureau did these calcs for the
contiguous U.S. and this document has been the starting point for weather intensity evaluation
ever since. To illustrate how much more extreme our rainfall events could become we can look
at storm frequency and intensity in Austin, Texas.
The 6-hour 10-year storm for Austin is 7.1 inches
The 6-hour 500-year storm for Austin is 8 inches
The 6-hour PMP for Austin is 31 inches
This is not to say that we will see 31 inches of rain in six hours, but it does relate the 40 percent
increase in extreme storms (reference 12) Austin has seen with 1 degree Fahrenheit of warming
relative to what we could expect with the IPCC 2013 suggested 9 degree Fahrenheit increase in
Austin by 2100. The headroom our climate has to become even more extreme is large.
13) The most extreme rainfall events have increased 40 percent across the South Central U.S… “If
a 0.558 C increase was accompanied by a 40% increase in extreme precipitation, what can we
expect from global temperature increases projected for the next few decades?”
Groisman et al., Changes in Intense Precipitation over the Central United States, Journal of the
American Meteorological Society, February 2012.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JHM-D-11-039.1
14) Heat extremes are already happening 10 to 100 times more frequently in Texas… Abstract:
“This hot extreme, which covered much less than 1% of Earth’s surface during the base period,
now typically covers about 10% of the land area.” Discussion, page 6 of 9, third paragraph:
“These extreme temperatures were practically absent in the period of climatology, covering
only a few tenths of one percent of the land area, but they are occurring over about 10% of
global land area in recent years…. It follows that we can state, with a high degree of
confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow
in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global
warming was exceedingly small.”
Hansen, Sato, Ruedy, Perception of Climate Change, Proceedings of the National Academy of
Science of the United States of America (PNAS), August 2012.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/07/30/1205276109.full.pdf+html
15) Global Warming has Already Doubled the Droughts and Floods in the U.S. Southeast… A Duke
University-led team of climate scientists suggests that global warming is the main cause of a
significant intensification in the North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH) that in the last 30 years
P a g e | 10
has more than doubled the frequency of abnormally wet or dry summer weather in the
southeastern United States.
Li, et. al., Changes to the North Atlantic Subtropical High and Its Role in the Intensification of
Summer Rainfall Variability in the Southeastern United States, Journal of Climate, October
2010.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2010JCLI3829.1
Script: Additional References
16) Greenland melt: more than in the last 100,000 years… Carbon-14 dating of rooted plant
remains found beneath the retreating edge of the ice sheet on Baffin Island, just west of
northern Greenland, shows the plants to have been alive at least 44,000 years ago. Most ice
sheets plow along as they go, disturbing plants. This one however is a non-flowing small ice
sheet that simply piles up and melts away with no lateral movement. The critical part of this
evaluation is that 44,000 years ago we were in the depths of the last ice age and it is highly
improbably that the plants were alive then. Carbon-14 data has a limit of about 44,000 years.
The last time it was plausible that this ice sheet was small enough for these plants to have been
alive was in the vicinity of 100,000 years ago.
Miller et al., Unprecedented recent summer warmth in Arctic Canada, Geophysical Research
Letters, October 2013.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL057188/abstract


Greenland ice loss IPCC 2013, 500 percent increase in the last ten years… Total ice loss
from melt, evaporation and icebergs has increase 532 percent from 34 gigatons 1992
2001 to 215 gigatons 2002 to 2011.
2013 IPCC, Summary for Policy Makers, B3 Cryosphere, bullet 2.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf
Greenland’s ice loss appears to be 22 percent more than 2013 IPCC suggests… The IPCC
uses four major outlet glaciers to define Greenland ice mass loss. The most recent
evaluation uses 130 glaciers and nearly 100,000 satellite laser altimetry points across
Greenland.
Csatho et al., Laser altimetry reveals complex pattern of Greenland Ice Sheet dynamics,
PNAS, December 30, 2014, abstract and paragraph 2, page 18480.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/52/18478.full.pdf+html
17) Abrupt climate changes have happened 23 times in the last 100,000 years… Twenty-three
times in the last 100,000 years our climate has changed 9 to 14 degrees F globally and 25 to 35
across the Arctic in time frames of as little as one to three years.
Alley, Wally Was Right - Predictive ability of the North Atlantic Conveyor Belt Hypothesis for
Abrupt Climate Change, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science, February 2007, Figure 1
shows the 23 abrupt climate changes.
http://shadow.eas.gatech.edu/~kcobb/abrupt/alley07.pdf

One to three years… As little as one to three years and the methods and techniques to
determine. “The high resolution records from the NGRIP ice core reveals that polar
atmospheric circulation can shift in 1-3 years resulting in decadal to centennial scale
P a g e | 11

changes from cold stadials to warm interstadials/interglacials associated with
astounding Greenland temperature changes of 10K.”
Two to three years… Steffensen et al., High-Resolution Greenland Ice Core Data Show
Abrupt Climate Change Happens in Few Years, Science Express, June 12, 2008, page
three, final paragraph.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5889/680.abstract
18) Permafrost melt…
“Field observations reveal that abrupt thaw processes are co nun on in northern landscapes,
but our review shows that mechanisms that speed thawing of frozen ground and release of
permafrost carbon are entirely absent from the large-scale models used to predict the rate of
climate change… Permafrost carbon emissions are likely to be felt over decades to centuries as
northern regions warm. malting climate change happen faster than we would expect on the
basis of projected emissions from human activities alone.”
“Recent progress towards predicting change in permafrost carbon dynamics focuses mostly on
gradual top-down thawing of permafrost. However, increasing evidence from the permafrost
zone suggests that abrupt permafrost thaw may be the norm for many parts of the Arctic
landscape"·'8.6'-62 (Fig. 4). Abrupt permafrost thaw occurs when warming melts ground ice,
causing the land surface to collapse into the volume previously occupied by ice. This process,
called thermokarst, alters surface hydrology. Water is attracted towards collapse areas, and
pooling or flowing water in turn causes more localized thawing and even mass erosion. Owing
to these localized feedbacks that can thaw through tens of metres of permafrost across a
hillslope within only a few years, permafrost thaw occurs much more rapidly than would be
predicted from changes in air temperature alone. This raises the question of whether key
complexity is missing from large-scale model projections that are based on first approximations
of permafrost dynamics.”
“Wetland expansion due to abrupt thaw has affected 10% of a peatland landscape in
northwestern Canada since the 1970s, with the fastest expansion in the past decade. Landscape
lake cover is also affected by abrupt thaw, with net change being the sum of both lake
expansion and drainage. The area of small open-water features around Prudhoe Bay on the
Alaska tundra has doubled since 1990. In northwestern Alaska, lake initiation has increased
since 1950, while lake expansion rates remained steady. In general, landscape lake cover is
currently believed to be stable or increasing within the continuous permafrost zone, whereas
there is a tendency for lake drainage and vegetation infilling to dominate over lake expansion in
the discontinuous permafrost zone.”
Schuur, Climate change and the permafrost carbon feedback, Nature, April 9, 2015.
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/274698738_Climate_change_and_the_permafrost_c
arbon_feedback
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
North of Denali National park in Alaska, 12 percent of the permafrost showed
exhibited thermokarst, or actively melting permafrost features…
Belshe , Quantification of upland thermokarst features with high resolution remote
sensing, Environmental Research Letters, July 16, 2013.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/3/035016/pdf/1748-9326_8_3_035016.pdf
Satellite imagery evaluation of permafrost melt in Northwest Territories Canada
shows an average of 0.5 percent loss per year from 1977 top 2008, or about 16
percent…
Chasmer et al., Quantifying errors in discontinuous permafrost plateau changes in
optical data, Northwest Territories, Canada, 1947 to 2008.
http://scholar.ulethbridge.ca/sites/default/files/chasmer/files/chasmer_etal_2010_qua
ntifying_errors_in_discontinuous_permafrost_plateau_change_from_optical_data_nwt
_1947-2008.pdf
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
United Nations Environmental Program report: Policy Implications of Warming
Permafrost - Summary of permafrost melt indications from the report… Recent
warming in the Arctic and mountainous regions has resulted in warmer permafrost and
deeper active layers (that freeze/thaw every year). During the last several decades,
permafrost is warming in most regions with evidence of talik formation (permanently
thawed area) at some locations in discontinuous permafrost regions. Increased snow
cover and warming permafrost resulted in massive development of new taliks in the
northwest of Russia, shifting the boundary between continuous and discontinuous
permafrost northward in northern Russia by several tens of kilometers. Measurements
of active layer thickness are not conclusive, with some sites showing a clear increase,
while others show no increase.
Permafrost temperatures have risen over the last several decades in Alaska. Coastal
sites show continuous warming since the 1980s and this warming trend has propagated
south towards the Brooks Range, with noticeable warming in the upper 20 m of
permafrost since 2008. Permafrost in the Alaskan interior warmed in the 1980s and
1990s, but has generally stabilized during the last ten years. Northern Russia and
northwest Canada show increases in permafrost temperature similar in magnitude to
those in Alaska during the last 30 to 35 years. Air temperatures above the Arctic Circle
are increasing at roughly twice the global average, so the same pattern repeats across
the Arctic with coastal sites warming faster than more southerly sites.
Trends in active layer thickness are less conclusive, with some sites showing increases,
but others showing no trend at all (with no sites showing a decrease in active layer
thickness). Active layer thickness has increased in the Russian European North, but not
in West Siberia. Increases in summer air temperature have increased the active layer
thickness on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau). Although active layer thickness has increased in
the Alaskan and Canadian interior, there is no obvious trend near the Arctic coastline.
Melting of excess ground ice might explain the lack of consistent trends in active layer
thickness even though permafrost temperatures show clear signs of warming. Year-toyear variability in active layer thickness due to variations in summer air temperature
also makes it difficult to detect long-term trends. However, radar measurements near
Prudhoe Bay indicate the surface has subsided by several centimeters since 1992, even
though nearby CALM sites showed no obvious increases in active layer thickness. The
excess ground ice in near-surface permafrost, if present, melts slowly over several years,
the water drains away and the ground surface settles, a process that is difficult to detect
using mechanical probing at CALM sites.
Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost, United Nations Environmental Program,
2012.
http://www.unep.org/pdf/permafrost.pdf
19) Permafrost can be over 2,000 feet deep… In northern Canada, permafrost can be as much as
2,300 feet deep.
Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost, United Nations Environmental Program, 2012.
http://www.unep.org/pdf/permafrost.pdf
20) Methane gas expulsion craters in Russia… A new phenomenon likely caused by accumulating
methane from melting permafrost at depth and capped by ice or clay soil.
Mysterious Craters Are Just the Beginning of Arctic Surprises
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mysterious-craters-are-just-the-beginning-of-arcticsurprises/
P a g e | 13
21) Methane is 105 times more powerful of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in time frames
that matter… In the far more critical 20-year time frame than the standard CO2 warming
comparison period of 100 years.
Shindell, et. al., Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions, Nature, October 2009.
http://saive.com/911/DOCS/AAAS-Aerosols-not-CO2-Cause-Global-Warming.pdf
22) Methane venting in the Laptev Sea north of Siberia… More methane is venting from the
Laptev Sea north of Siberia than all of the rest of the world’s oceans combined. The area of the
Arctic Ocean north of Siberia is the shallowest continental shelf in the world. It was above
water level during the last ice age when sea level was 360 feet lower and is the site of
significant permafrost deposition that was subsequently flooded as we emerged from the last
ice age pulse about 10,000 years ago. Today this area is likely the most rapidly warming area in
the Arctic Ocean and this is likely impacting permafrost equilibrium.
Shahkova et.al., Extensive methane venting to the atmosphere from sediments of the East
Siberian Arctic Shelf, Science, March 2010.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=E6EDB0669DD2904AAE6B27561320
9BF7?doi=10.1.1.374.5869&rep=rep1&type=pdf
23) The Mountain Pine beetle has devastated 88 million acres in North America… With a 70 to 90
percent kill rate, the native beetle is only stopped by extreme cold that disappeared over
twenty years ago.
National Geographic, That Bug That’s eating the Woods, April 2015.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/pine-beetles/rosner-text
Sims et al., Complementarity in the provision of ecosystem services reduces the cost of
mitigation amplified natural disturbance events, PNAS, November 25, 2014.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/47/16718.full.pdf