Melting Down by environmental consultant Harvey Stone is an environmental thriller based upon 1 wellresearched scientific data and 2 realworld geopolitical scenarios The novel tracks an international terrorist plot to exploit the changing climate in order to fulfill Russias historical destiny world domination It includes political intrigue suspense and action that span the globe from Hawaii to the Arctic and from Washington to Moscow Within the fictional plot Melting Down embeds key aspects of the science behind the changing climate as well as its observed and predicted impacts It also explores a systemsoriented approach for simultaneously solving many of todays economic social and environmental problems Briefly Melting Downs plot takes place in the final weeks of a tooclosetocall US Presidential election President Charley Breen must overcome overwhelming personal tragedy and political pressure in order to stop the terrorist plot Admiral Boris Sukirov and his highranking coconspirators view the disappearing Arctic sea ice as Russias final opportunity to control the world Arming mercenaries with suitcase nuclear devices they hold the worlds glaciers hostage while exploiting the realworld scenarios that readers hear about in todays media Tex Cassidy is the Presidents lifelong friend a Pulitzernominated investigative reporter and a master at uncovering the connections between seemingly unrelated actions He teams up with Zavia Jansen a worldclass designer of stormsurge barriers in a global manhunt that must uncover and derail Operation Noah As they crisscross the globe to achieve their goals Melting Downs characters represent many scientific political and moral viewpoints These viewpoints range from energy stakeholders to scientists calling for immediate action to political climatedeniers The viewpoints also address questions such as who benefits from the changing climate and is there a way to mitigate the worst aspects of the changing climate