In late 2006 we used the Plan Language Analysis (PLA) Tool to analyze a Global Warming document from the European union: "GREEN PAPER A European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy". Our findings are published on the PLA web portal http://www/cassbeth.com/pla.

From that experience an effort was initiated to try to understand how individuals, organizations, governments and international entities accomplish things. The following new services for a Policy Document Analysis surfaced: Broad Approaches, Institutions, Organizational Tool, and Nation State Tools.

Early in 2007 we were introduced to the Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change. We subjected the Stern Review to our Generic Document Analysis (GDA) tool. This effort tool approximately 3 days to complete, including the writing of this report and updating the web portals.

The Stern Review was analyzed as a single concatenated document. It was converted to text format. The Parse Text option was selected and all the display areas were disabled except for Accessed Patterns and Metrics. The follow steps were used to prepare for the analysis.

1. Converted the .pdf files to .txt documents. This was accomplished by:

• open each document in a PDF reader
• pick the Text Select Tool button at the top of the menu area
• under view select continuous
• go into the body of the document
• right click with the mouse and select copy
• past into microsoft word
• save microsoft word in .txt format

1. Subjected only the executive summaries to the "word themes" service. This resulted in the follow new services: International Tools, Social Warnings, Urgency, and Subversion Tactics. The last 2 services are still in development.
2. Merged the text documents into a single large file. This was accomplished with multiple opens and pastes into a single text document.
3. Examined the other templates: Constitutions, Legislation, Plain Language, and Screenplays. This resulted in the following new services: National Roles, International Roles, Special Interests, Emotions, and Overall Reaction.
4. Made the broad statement that the other templates may provide additional insight into the document, but did not perform the analysis.

The services were initially captured in a Microsoft Word using a very simple template where the services and rules are level 1 and 2 settings while the patterns are norm style format. Services and rules that were modifications from other templates were moved directly into the new template as HTML text. This reused content was moved into the Microsoft Word document after the template was populated.

Bouncing between the Microsoft document view and the GDA template authoring view flushed out the inconsistencies and errors. When no more changes were detected the analysis was started.

The template evolved slightly once the analysis started. The changes were associated with COLOR settings and wild cards at the end of certain search pattern. There was one change to the pattern to look for "options and approaches" The pattern was broadened to show various options and approaches.

The analysis entailed subjecting the full text version of the Stern Review to each service and saving the results into Previous Analysis. The following services were used to analyze the Stern Review:

Broad Approaches s5s

Institutions s6s

Societal Approaches s7s

Organizational Tools s8s

Nation State Tools s9s

International Tools s10s

Social Warnings s11s

National Roles s12s

International Roles s13s

Special Interests s14s

Emotions s15s

Overall Reaction s16s

The accessed patterns were scanned. This section includes an area for patterns not found. This area provides as much if not more information than the actual mined patterns. Next the Metrics were examined.

The next level of analysis where the findings of each service are further refined was not performed. This is an ad hoc activity usually yields more insight, however there is much to say about the document at this level of analysis.

This is a very large body of work, and not because it has a large page count. It is the opposite of the GREEN PAPER. When we first analyzed the GREEN PAPER from the EU we were disappointed to find that it did not have much meaningful actionable content. It pointed to vague references of markets, international efforts, and the people. Looking back on that result now within the context of the Stern Review, it is clear that the GREEN PAPER was a cry out for help. It appears as though the Stern Review attempts to address that cry for help to some extent.

The Stern review is filled with strong words suggesting urgency. It is extremely broad in its treatment and attempts to offer some alternatives. It does appear that it was created in a time when the case for global warming was still a topic of discussion and so it makes the point of addressing that issue. While this report was being prepared institutions were being triggered and it is highly likely that the creation of the report resulted in information flow via external channels that global warming is real and must be addressed. So at the time of release much of its themes and threads dedicated towards making the case for Global Warming was not applicable.

Even tough the Stern Review offers some alternatives and options; it could use more work in that area. There is also minimal emphasis in the words relating to the technical approaches to the problem. Simulation, game theory, and modeling are part of the report, but other technical approaches to problem solving are not clearly visible. It is obvious that this is the next step.

The Stern Review has strong references to policy and appears to look at the Global Warming problem holistically as evidenced by the sheer spread of hits of different topics addressed and surfaced with the mining. This may be why the report was split into different parts. So it would seem that future document analysis should considered the parts in a stand-alone fashion and drill down into each service for ad hoc findings encouraged.