Important material on climate change

‪Last Hours‬

Lasthours.org

The film “Last Hours” describes a science-based climate scenario where a tipping point to runaway climate change is triggered by massive releases of frozen methane. Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has already started to percolate into the open seas and atmosphere from methane hydrate deposits beneath melting arctic ice, from the warming northern-hemisphere tundra, and from worldwide continental-shelf undersea methane pools.

Burning fossil fuels release carbon that, principally through greenhouse effect, heat the atmosphere and the seas. This is happening most rapidly at the polar extremes, and this heating has already begun the process of releasing methane. If we do not begin to significantly curtail the use of carbon-based fossil fuels, this freed methane threatens to radically accelerate the speed of global warming, potentially producing a disaster beyond the ability of the human species to adapt.

With this film, we hope to awaken people to the fact that the earth has experienced five major extinctions in the deep geologic past – times when more than half of all life on earth vanished – and that we are now entering a sixth extinction. Industrial civilization with its production of greenhouse gases has the potential to trigger a mass extinction on the order of those seen in the deep geological past. In the extreme, it could threaten not just human civilization, but the very existence of human life on this planet.

An asset for the climate change movement, “Last Hours” will be disseminated globally to help inform society about the dangers associated with climate change and to encourage the world community to chart a path forward that greatly reduces green house gas emissions. We encourage you to explore this website and the highlighted actions you can take to address climate change. We look forward to bringing you additional films about the challenges we face and the solutions that exist over the next few years, in the lead up to COP21, the 2015 UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris.

“Last Hours” is narrated by Thom Hartmann and directed by Leila Conners. Executive Producers are George DiCaprio and Earl Katz. Last Hours is produced by Mathew Schmid of Tree Media Foundation, and was written by Thom Hartmann, Sam Sacks, and Leila Conners. Music is composed and performed by Francesco Lupica.

Watch Thom Hartmann’s in depth interviews with scientists working on the front lines of climate change

1. GLOBAL WARMING: AN UNCONTROLLED EXPERIMENT

Dr. Michael Mann, Climate Scientist

2. THE PERMIAN EXTINCTION

Dr. Paul Wignall, School of Earth and Environments-University of Leeds

3. THE SIBERIAN EXPEDITION – METHANE

Professor Benjamin Black, PhD-MIT Geology and Planetary Science

4. THE SLEEPING GIANT – ARCTIC ICE MELT

Dr. Charles Miller, CARVE Project-NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory

5.CLIMATE CHANGE – THE STORY OF CARBON CYCLING & METHANE

Professor Gerald R. “Jerry” Dickens, Department of Earth & Science-Rice University. Global climate change means big changes for the climate – but could it also mean something worse?

6. CARBON IN THE ARCTIC

Dr. Charles Miller, Research Scientist & principal investigator of the Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE) – a five-year NASA-led field campaign studying how climate change is affecting the Arctic’s carbon cycle.

7. TIPPING POINTS & EXTINCTION EVENTS

Dr. Peter Ward, University of Washington joins Thom Hartmann. What can the mass extinctions of the past tell us about our future?

8. HOW MOST LIFE ON EARTH CAN DIE

Dr. Michael Benton, University of Bristol, UK. Dr. Benton focuses on the end-Permian mass extinction, the most severe of our planet’s five major extinction events. His most well-known papers on the subject was titled “How to kill almost all life: the end-Permian extinction event.”

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