cc: "David Viner (E-Mail) (E-mail)" , "Mike Hulme (E-mail)" , "Rob Swart (E-mail)" , "Thomas Voigt (E-mail)" date: Thu, 27 May 2004 17:52:25 +0200 from: André Jol subject: RE: FW: Movie "The Day after tomorrow" to: "Jelle van Minnen" Dear all, For your information, the EEA has today placed the briefing on the film "The Day After Tomorrow" on our web site. See: http://www.eea.eu.int/main_html http://org.eea.eu.int/news/Ann1085586471 A response to Jelle: the main purpose is to inform the general (interested) public as well as policymakers properly on an important environmental subject that receives very much attention in the media and is often mis-interpreted and misunderstood. Especially regarding this film some are deliberately misusing it for their own purposes. See in particular the various media articles/statements by the Danish Institute on Env Assessment, lead by Lomborg, who went as far as to warn decision/policy-makers that the movie would be too dangerous to even see....(the risk being that they would then be inclined to spend huge budgets on a problem that is not worth spending much money on at all). This does not mean EEA intends to act as an NGO, nor that EEA will be a film critic in future for all films that have some environmental aspect! Regards, Andre Jol ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andre Jol Group leader air and climate change European Environment Agency Kongens Nytorv 6, DK-1050 Copenhagen K, Denmark phone : +45 33367144 fax : +45 33367199 email : andre.jol@eea.eu.int http://www.eea.eu.int ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: Jelle van Minnen [mailto:Jelle.van.Minnen@rivm.nl] Sent: 27 May, 2004 11:21 AM To: André Jol Cc: David Viner (E-Mail) (E-mail); Mike Hulme (E-mail); Rob Swart (E-mail); Thomas Voigt (E-mail) Subject: Re: FW: Movie "The Day after tomorrow" Andre, Few remarks to your 5 page document, partly in line with what Mike and David have written yesterday: For me the objective of the document is unclear. To you want to send to to policymakers as a background document to the film, or is it ment to be a press release (what I thought to understand yesterday from you on the phone). Especially in the latter case (but also in the former case, to my opinion) it is too long (5 pages). And what is the reason. Is it the release of the film (and the EEA view to it), or a kind of pre-anouncement of our report (in relation to the film). I agree with Mike and David, that the link to the ice-age is unlogical. As you write, models show that the THC slows down and might collapse in the coming centuries (in a most unlikely scenario). The consequences for the temperature are unclear. As I read somewhere, clear is that we will get a 'colder Europe in a warmer world'. But how much colder. As far as I understand, there is no risk of a ice-age as we had before, for sure not globally and (to my knowledge) also not for Europe. We might end (I will try to find some references) with temperatures close what we had at the end of last century. Think about Montreal or Winnepeg (typical places not experiencing a warm gulf stream effect) under a 5-8 oC warming (temperatures needed to collapse the gulfstream). Of course, it will have an effect on Europe, but how it will look like is unclear. In this respect I support the suggestions of David. I also support the view of Mike and David, that you should state that the timescales in the film are not relastic and some of the effects as well. On the other hand, the film shows some (very long-term) impacts. Such impacts are also recently published in the Pentagon study, showing extreme impacts (e.g. The Hague will disappear) under a very extreme scenario. The Guardian response to this study was, for example : Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us (type for other results "Pentagon" "Climate change" into Google and you will get more than 40000 hits) Something also in the film (as far as I have heard), not mentioned in you document, is the smelt down of the WAIS. This is a important cause of the dramatic effects of the Pentagon study. May be you should mention this as well, unless I wrong that this is inclued in the film. Also for this, you should state that is is very unlikely. Small thing. You mention that global temperature has increase 0.6 oC. As we write in our indicator report, it is in the meantime 0.7 oC. This would bring your document in line with our report. To summarize, you could mention that climate change posses a big threat with possible large consequences to human society and the environment (as such the film might help to increase awareness of this problem). But be careful about stressing too much on the dramatic effects like shown in the film. They are partly unlikely (especially in the next centuries), or even impossible, as explained by David (although nobody knows). We are not a NGO, having a campaign against climate change. On the other hand,we are not the first mentioning the large impacts. I hope this helps. Jelle Mr Jelle G. van Minnen European Topic Centre on Air and Climate Change RIVM, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency +31 30 2742479 (direct), +31 30 274 3550 (secr.) +31 30 274 4433 (fax) jelle.van.minnen@rivm.nl Postal address: RIVM/LED (pb24) P.O Box 1, 3720 BA Bilthoven, the Netherlands