Film Asks World Leaders to Agree to no more than a 2 degree temperature increase

In a solar powered tent in New York’s financial district, not far from the hole in the ground where the World Trade Center used to stand, the film the Age of Stupid premiered Monday night; simultaneously broadcast to a million people around the world to more than 600 cinemas in over 40 countries. The film is a drama-documentary hybrid about a future in which the world failed to stop climate change.

The story is told from the perspective of Pete, the founder of the Global Archive, a storage facility located in the now melted Arctic, on a post habitable planet. Pete acts as the narrator for the story, pulling together clips from the archive documentary from 1950 to 2008 showing what went wrong and why.

The story follows a string of six stories from a paleontologist who helps shell find more oil off the cost of New Orleans, a low cost airline startup in India, a woman who lives in poverty in Nigeria, a wind developer in England who fights against not in my own back yard politics, a French mountain guide who witnesses the disappearance of glaciers and a young Iraqi refugee living on the streets of Jordan.

MTV’s Gideon Yago hosted the premiere, which included a green carpet (made of recycled soda bottles), a bicycled powered performance by Moby, and a slew of celebrities and world leaders alongside with live satellite feeds from far corners of the world already affected by climate change.

What is going on today “at the UN will be the biggest conference on climate change in humanity history” Yago explained. It is no coincidence that the films world premiere came the night before.

After the film ended a discussion broke out with those in attendance. Amongst those attending was Dr. Rajendra K. Pachuri, chair of the International Panel on Climate Change, a position that awarded him the Nobel Prize alongside former Vice President Al Gore.

Among topics of discussion, was the theme within the film that showed necessity to cap emissions , and soon. “The film is correct emissions must peak by 2015 to stop temperatures from going above 2 degrees -2.4 degrees Celsius” Dr. Pachuri explained after the film.

Former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan was also in attendance. “What is important is that everyone (at the UN meeting tomorrow) is accepting the science, and no one is saying we need more science” Annan explained.

The former Secretary General called upon those listening to send a message out to the leaders that they want to protect this planet, and provide such a shout that they cannot ignore it. “Good leaders are good followers, and if we shout loud enough it might help” Annan continued

The film’s director, Fanny Armstrong described purpose of the event being “to inspire viewers to leap into collective action before world leaders decide our fate at the crucial Climate Summit in December”. The summit has been billed as the last chance to make any substantial policy that would have an effect on the earth’s climate, and todays high level meeting at the UN is the last chance the leaders will gather before December.

Along with a discussion, live interviews were broadcast from Indonesia and the Himalayas two of the places of the world already feeling the destruction from humanity, and climate change.
Mina Susana Setra of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance was live in Indonesia, behind her, the massive deforestation that has occurred on the landscape. Mina described how “2 million hectares a year of deforestation occur in Indonesia every year”.

After the feed from Indonesia, a live shot from the Himalayas. The word Himalaya literally means “abode of snow” yet what was shown had no snow, this range had lost its glaciers.
Shekhar Kapur, a film director, stood live from where the glaciers used to stand.

“The Himalayas are retreating faster than any glaciers in the world,” Kapur explained. The Himalayas are the source of water for 1.3 billion people, and projections show that the icepack could be gone by 2025, which could leave 1.3 billion without water.

“We were standing at the blink of catastrophe, it’s not about our children, it is about us. Global warming is happening, in Asia we will not be able to sustain life any more. That is what is happening please do something about” Kapur explained.

The message of the film was simple. “We are right at the end of the time where we can still do something about climate change. The last time we can do that is at the Copenhagen summit in December.

President Nasheed of the Maldives, attended the premiere as well. President Nasheed has just committed his country to carbon neutrality within ten years, which will make the Maldives the first country in the world do this.

“Even if the Maldivians go carbon neutral, nothing is going to happen, but we thought if we did the right thing, we could die knowing we did the right thing. Climate change is very serious, in the Maldives, “the sea is taking away our land”.

There have been less fish in the Maldives; I am told that this is because the oceans are warmer than it used to be, so the Tuna stay below, if the ocean temperatures are rising, we have a serious problem with coral bleaching.

HOPES OF THE FILM

The film set out to inspire citizens and leaders that Copenhagen is a deadline that must be met. This means attempting something that has never done before, to turn around the worlds’ rise in emissions.

“The problem is that right now, the politicians are behind the science, a minister from the UK expressed at the premiere.

The Copenhagen deal is “Not a done deal by any means”. –Minister of Climate Change in the UK explained.

As the premier event ended Radiohead’s Thom Yorke-sang live via satellite. (Submerged pyramid song).

And a recorded message from kids in Copenhagen played, calling out to world leaders and telling them it is still possible, please come here to Copenhagen and don’t be stupid”.

Former Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke Goes On Bill Maher and Calls Global Warming a Bigger Threat than Terrorism

On the 8th Anniversary of September 11th  former Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke went on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher and described terrorism as a lesser threat than global warming.

Richard Clarke who served in government for over 30 years and was the chief counter-terrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council at the time of the September 11th attacks, was asked by Bill Maher what he thought the bigger threat to be.

"Oh it's defiantly global worming, Terrorism as apposed to global warming, it's definitely global warming.  Terrorism is a passing event" explained Clarke.

This week global warming made headlines as the massive 160,000-acre Station wildfire continued to burn near Los Angeles and Arctic sea ice disappearance opened a shipping passage that hadn't been open for hundreds of years linked trade between Asia and the West through the thawing ocean waters. 

I did notice this week LA County seemed to be on fire.  Every week there's another headline kinda a wholly shit headline on global warming situation.  We used to have a fire season out here," Explained Bill Maher.