OWNING the WEATHER Press
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OWNING THE WEATHER Synopsis The weather might be the most important thing to humankind. It affects our moods, what clothes we wear, what foods we eat and how we live. Despite centuries of scientific victories that have enabled us to exert some control and “air condition” the elements out of our lives, we may never escape the weather. The desire to modify the weather has been around forever; but with the threat of catastrophic climate change, water wars, and intensifying hurricanes, a new breed of weather control has emerged. Mixing character-driven verité with the scope of an essay film, OWNING THE WEATHER tells the story of weather modification in the United States, from Charles Hatfield’s infamous rainmaking days to modern plans to engineer the climate. There are more than fifty active weather modification programs in the United States alone. Through the eyes of key individuals on the front lines of a crucial but largely unknown debate, the film introduces the cloud seeders struggling for mainstream recognition, the “legitimate” scientists who doubt them, and the activists who decry any attempts to mess with Mother Nature. Will the scientific renegades in the weather modification community ever shed the label of “snake-oil salesman”? Will they succeed in securing government funding for the first time in decades? What does it mean to our society and our consciousness if there are no more acts of God? Traversing vast ethical, political, and social currents, the film asks the question, “will we have to own the weather to save the planet?” The film premiered in 2009 at the prestigious Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and continues to screen at festivals across the United States and Europe. Most recently it received the great honor of being selected by the Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX) to screen at this year's UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Denmark in December. The summit includes the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 5th Meeting of the Parties (COP/MOP 5) to the Kyoto Protocol. An international framework for climate change mitigation beyond 2012 is to be negotiated there. 4th Row Films, 27 W. 20th Street, Ste. 1006, New York, NY 10011 T: 212-974-0082 / F: 212-627-3090 OWNING THE WEATHER Director’s Statement By Robert Greene In December 2005 I read Ando Arike’s “Owning the Weather: The Ugly Politics of the Pathetic Fallacy” in Harper’s Magazine. It was a smart, considered essay that brought together many disparate stories to illuminate the hubris and folly of Man’s long desire to control the weather. I immediately knew this story would be my first feature film. I contacted the writer, met him at a Brooklyn teashop, and began researching the history, facts about, and ethical/political/moral questions raised by this thing called “weather modification.” We shopped the idea around and the film got some interest at a well-established documentary production company. They told us, however, that we really needed to find one character that wanted to do some major weather modification experiment and follow his journey. This was, of course, documentary conventional wisdom. One- character stories sell. I was convinced, however, that the film could be so much bigger. I saw the story as the kind many of my cinematic heroes (Frederick Wiseman, Adam Curtis, Werner Herzog, etc.) might want to tell. And I was more than a little worried that we would have to make a guy who wanted to screw with the weather a de facto hero. So when our character turned out to be a complete con artist and the film collapsed, I was actually a little relieved. The production company voided my contract and we were back to square one with an article and an idea. I felt like I had to tell the story - not just a sliver of it, but the whole, big, messy thing. This was not just a story about making it rain or stopping a hurricane. It was about our changing place in nature and how our long desire to control the elements have led us to a place where, because of climate change, we may have to control the weather to survive. I brought the project to 4th Row Films and they were supportive of my vision for the film, so we cobbled together the money and began shooting. Some two years and twenty states later, after having a child and getting married (a new family that joined me on almost every trip), we had several hundreds of hours of material that seemed as vast, chaotic and exciting as the weather itself. 4th Row Films, 27 W. 20th Street, Ste. 1006, New York, NY 10011 T: 212-974-0082 / F: 212-627-3090 OWNING THE WEATHER Cast (in alphabetical order) Roger Angel Ando Arike Colonel Donald Berchoff Richard “Heatwave” Berler Wallace Broecker Ken Caldeira Mike Davis Kerry Emanuel Storm Field James Fleming Alvia Gaskill James Gleick Joseph Golden Larry Hjermstad Steve Hunter Garrett Keizer Dennis Kucinich Eugene Linden Richard Lindzen Mark Mathis Chris Mooney Pat Mooney Mike MacCracken Bill McKibben Daniel Quinn Stephen Schneider Daniel Schrag Tommy Shearrer Tom Wigley 4th Row Films, 27 W. 20th Street, Ste. 1006, New York, NY 10011 T: 212-974-0082 / F: 212-627-3090 OWNING THE WEATHER Selected Cast Biographies (in alphabetical order) Roger Angel is an expert in optics and astronomy, working as a professor at the University of Arizona. He is currently working under a grant from NASA to build 16 trillion “mirrors” in space to halt the effects of global warming. Ando Arike wrote the January 2006 Harper’s article “Owning the Weather: The Ugly Politics of the Pathetic Fallacy. ” He is currently working on an article for Harper’s about the use of non-lethal weapons. Colonel Donald Berchoff is a senior member of the Air Force Weather Agency and a weather history enthusiast. Ken Caldeira is a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University. A leading proponent of geoengineering, his recent op-ed piece in The New York Times brought the subject to a new audience. Mike Davis is a world-renowned historian, environmentalist and Marxist. He has written several well-known books, including Ecology of Fear, City of Quartz and Dead Cities and Other Tales. Kerry Emanuel was named one of Time’s One Hundred Most Influential People in 2006. He is a professor of meteorology at MIT, where he studies the potential effect of global warming on hurricanes. Storm Field is the son of meteorologist Frank Field. He worked as a meteorologist in New York City for 25 years. James Fleming is a professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. His research in the fields of weather modification and geoengineering was featured in the article “The Climate Engineers” in The Wilson Quarterly in the Spring of 2007. He is currently writing a book about the history of weather modification and climate control. Alvia Gaskill is an independent lobbyist for geoengineering working out of North Carolina. He also administrates the geoengineering Google discussion group. James Gleick has written many books, including Chaos, an in-depth look into the world of Dr. Edward Lorenz, author of the Chaos Theory and theorist of the Butterfly Effect. His books have been Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalists. 4th Row Films, 27 W. 20th Street, Ste. 1006, New York, NY 10011 T: 212-974-0082 / F: 212-627-3090 Joseph Golden considers himself the George Custer of weather modification because he was head of the last federally-funded weather modification program. He is now retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Larry Hjermstad, is president of Western Weather Consultants in Durango, Colorado. He has worked in weather modification for the past 40 years. His nickname is “The Snow God.” Steven Hunter is an independent weather modification consultant and a Buddhist. He currently practices his profession in Turkey. Garret Keizer is a former Episcopal priest and English teacher, and author of books including Help and The Enigma of Anger. His article “Climate, Class, and Claptrap” was featured in the June 2007 issue of Harper’s. Eugene Linden is an author who has written about environmental topics for nearly thirty years. His most recent book, Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations, discusses the effect of weather events on the rise and fall of civilizations. Richard Lindzen is a professor of meteorology at MIT. He famously opposes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in his controversial view that global warming is not caused by human action. Mark Mathis is an accomplished meteorologist, and currently host of the popular morning show Fox News Rising in Charlotte, North Carolina. Chris Mooney, bestselling author of The Republican War on Science, released the book Storm World in 2007, which discussed the effect of global warming on hurricanes. His blog, http://scienceblogs.com/intersection, is one of the most popular science journalism sites on the internet. Pat Mooney is the executive director of the ETC Group, an environmental lobbyist group out of Ottawa, Ontario. In 2007 he wrote the article “Gambling with Gaia,” which discussed the ramifications of geoengineering solutions from an eco-political point-of- view. Mike MacCracken is a pioneer in the field of climate engineering. He worked with Dr. Edward Teller at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and later as a science advisor under the Clinton administration. Bill McKibben is an activist and author of many books, including “The End of Nature.” He is currently traveling the country with a grassroots campaign to raise awareness about global warming.