10/08/2026
Thin Ice was a movie produced 15 years ago by Simon Lamb, a scientist and camerman at Oxford University and then Victoria University.
The movie outlined the science of climate change through the stories of leading scientists of the day. You can still find it here: https://thiniceclimate.org/
It's very good.
Last week the NZ Royal Society hosted a presentation providing an update on Climate Change since Thin Ice was produced. Here is a brief summary of what each speaker said (thanks to Jonathan for the note taking)
Associate Professor Simon Lamb:
The science was under attack in 2007. Scientists were branded as extremists and alarmists. He had no funding but ran a crowd funding campaign and filmed 100 hrs of material.
Since then, global temperature has increased significantly.
At the time, sceptics said global warming had ended.
Professor Dave Lowe - atmospheric chemist.
He spent most of his life taking Co2 recordings at Baring Head. The best time was during a southerly storm when clean air is blown up from Antarctica.
He was 23 years old when he started taking measurements.
He has witnessed rise in Co2 from 321ppm, to 385ppm when Thin Ice was filmed and now to 425ppm today.
Professor Nancy Bertler - Ice core researcher.
Snow cores at Antactica have air bubbles in them, that have captured the levels of Co2 going back for 1000s of years.
They show 15 degree swings in temperatures across several ice ages over the last 800,000 years. These temperature swings completely change the earth.
Scientists are now looking ahead beyond 2100 to 2300.
"We still have an opportunity to exit a high emissions future and return to a liveable climate."
Professor Tim Naish - glaceologist and climate scientist, Victoria University.
Was involved with ANDRIL ice drilling project at time of Thin Ice movie.
Drilled cores at Antarctica 1284m deep! They were drilling back in time, when the Ross Sea was 2, 3, and 4 degrees warmer.
"We are going to destabilise the West Antarctic Ice Sheet."
Having over 350ppm of Co2 and over 2 deg temp rise will lead to the collapse of the ice sheet and it will be hard to reverse seal level rise after that.
We now have 50cm of sea level rise locked in. That is irreversable.
Already we see that 12-15cm of sea level rise means a 1 in 100 year coastal flood becomes an annual event.
But the more we can mitigate climate change by reducing emissions, the less we will have to adapt to in future.
Tim has been through dark times, but he just keeps working at it.
Thanksfully, the worst case scenario published by IPCC is no longer plausible because of recent Co2 reductions and the transition to renewable energy.
We can get to less than 3 degrees warming if we work harder.
But the window is very short.
Less than a decade.
Dr Andy Reisinger - Climate Change Comissioner.
We are running an experiment for the first time.
Since Thin Ice was fimed, the temperature projections have been painfully accurate.
We will power past 1.5 degrees.
We need to limit Greenhouse Gases on all fronts.
But there are off-ramp exits leading to 1.6 deg, 1.7 deg, 1.8 deg.
We need to slow down and get on an exit ramp.
We have missed the exit for 1.5 deg, and we are now passing the exit for 1.6 deg.
Every 5 years delay means 0.1 deg increase.
The goal must be zero Co2 emissions ASAP, and deeply reduce other greenhouse gases.
Then to turn around impacts of climate change we would have to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Our job is to make it happen.
Emetirus Professor Jonathan Boston - public policy expert
He explained the "diabolical politics of climate change".
Climate change is the "greatest market failure the world has ever seen" economics professor Nicolas Stern.
Climate change is a tragedy of the commons and a tragedy of the horizon.
Counties want a free ride to avoid passing on costs to citizens.
It is a creeping problem - slow and not obvious
It is a long problem - large gap between cause and effect
It is an intergenerational problem - the main costs will fall on the young and future generations (but voters are not forward thinking).
Interest groups are highly resourced (fossil fuel companies) and the richest counties are the most powerful.
We will soon overshoot 1.5 degrees and will therefore increase the problem that needs solving and the impacts to adapt to.
It is a terrible legacy.
Rt Hon Simon Upton - Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment
He summarised the policies and politics of Climate Change.
Kyoto Protocol (1997) was top down diplomacy. Voters would not support it.
Paris Agreement (2015) got over the line, but 2013 was the swansong of multinational co-operation. It was followed by Brexit, Trump, European populism.
Only China remains the credible player in the room.
We need to change how we communicate the problem.
The ETS has turned the climate debate into an accounting exercise. And so the ETS is not winning hearts and minds.
Positives = technologies such as solar panels and EVs.
Negatives = the 'terrible legacy' vision as outlined by Jonathan Boston is not a great argument.
Fear of the unknown? China accepts the challenge and backs the solutions.
They may eventually demand climate change action by other countries?
But counties react to core self-interest.
Multilateralism is broken.
Simon Upton believes that the way forward now is is plural-laturalism: cooperation among like-minded countries.
The current government is about to cut agriculture and environmental research considerably.
Panel discussion (just bullet points)
Climate changes is the biggest existential threat.
Climate change will take 100 years to fight.
Talk about climate change in simple, interesting ways - with passion and knowledge and listening.
It is a Faustian pact with convienience = fossil fuels are just so dense in energy. But China is showing us that solar energy is also very convienient.
There are lots of incredible things happening. Great projects, goals and achievements (yes, we did think of Rameka). We need to use every tool in the toolbox as urgently as possible. The window is now only one decade and every delay makes the problem harder to solve and larger to adapt to.
If you are interested to know more, but don't have much time, there are some free short clips from Thin Ice here: https://thiniceclimate.org/free-resources
