Climate Change Cowardice from Chicago Weather Anchors

[Willinois]

Read the full article on the blog.

I generally enjoy the WTTW PBS program Chicago Tonight, but their guests on Friday made me wonder if I had accidentally turned to Fox News. The program promised "three local weather experts discuss Chicago’s 2012 weather trends: a mild winter, a spring heat wave, and a hot, dry summer."

The host, Joel Weisman, raised the question of weather patterns gently at first. When none of the guests took the bait, he pushed them more directly by bringing up climate change. The meteorologists reacted as though someone had dropped a turd in the middle of the room. Turning away, throwing up their hands and groaning, it was obviously the last thing they wanted to talk about.

Phil Schwarz of ABC-7 first brought up the "natural cycles" argument that climate change deniers have retreated to since the global trend is now undeniable. He claimed that whether man-made pollutants are causing the problem is the topic of debate.

Next someone suggested that climate trends are regional and that harsh winters in some areas somehow disprove the fact that we're experiencing a global phenomenon.

I believe it was Jim Allsopp of the National Weather Service who inserted a little knowledge into the discussion by pointing out that climate change causes more extreme weather in all seasons, including winter blizzards and unpredictable spring flooding. At least one person displayed a basic understanding of the issue, even if he didn't forcefully refute all the nonsense coming from others on the program.

There was no acknowledgement that climate change is a catastrophic problem, much less that there are specific industries most responsible for making it worse.

Well, that kind of pissed me off. I left this message on their blog and Facebook page.

I was very disappointed to hear the meteorologists' irresponsible and misleading dodge on the climate change issue. It was false to claim that there's still a debate among scientists about whether the problem is man-made. The scientific community has reached a consensus. It's only the political world that distorts the issue. Claiming that the question is still unsettled adds to that distortion.

Additionally, suggesting that harsh winters in some areas somehow disprove climate change showed astonishing ignorance.

I understand that anyone who admits the scientific consensus of climate change will be attacked by angry conservatives who whine about liberal bias. But, someone in a public role has an obligation to inform, rather than pander to ignorance. Six Cook County residents have died in the latest heat wave, so far. Illinois crops are suffering drought. Flooding is destroying river communities. This issue has real life and death consequences. Meteorologists with a platform on television become part of the problem when they display the kind of ignorance and cowardice I saw on the program tonight. Honest discussions of climate change should be part of the weather report.

You can see what happens at any online news comment section. Any mention of climate change brings out the horde of conservative Fox/talk-radio listeners, repeating the latest talking points, ranting about Al Gore's socialist UN conspiracy, and whining about liberal bias. I'm sure they get similar phone calls and emails. Meteorologists are being bullied into silence in the same way that the right has bullied much of the press into self-censoring liberal viewpoints. The right has effectively silenced those who prefer to avoid controversy.

So, I can understand why a television weather anchor would rather keep people happy by not taking sides. The trouble is that, by pretending this is still an open question, they did take sides.

The strategy of the oil and coal industry is not to deny climate change. That's no longer a defensible position. Instead, their goal is that the science behind it be treated as an unsettled question. They simply want to cast doubt about whether a scientific consensus exists. So, when meteorologists describe the issue of humans contributing to climate change as an uncertainty, they're parroting the talking points of fossil fuel industry propagandists.

As another online commenter pointed out, the remarks on Chicago Tonight are even out of sync with the consensus of their own profession. The American Meteorological Society, along with 17 other scientific organizations, signed a letter addressed to the U.S. Senate which states:

Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science.

This is an issue every television meteorologist must confront. As we face unprecedented heat waves, undeniable trends over the past two decades, more catastrophic storms, hurricanes and flooding, will they choose to ignore the 800 pound elephant in the room?

They must accept that, for people in their position, there's no safe middle ground. Refusing to speak up about climate change makes them allies of the oil industry campaign to cast doubt on scientific realities and lulls the public into a complacency that delays action. And the costs of delay on this issue are deadly.

© 2012 Willinois. This article is reproduced by permission of the author. All rights reserved.

[jaxx]

Good response to them Willinois. People are going to have to admit that climate change is real and we are dealing with it all the time. I even saw Colorado Springs (the bastion of the evangelical repubs) bring it up during the fires.

[Dimwitted Fool]

the news to trickle down from the meteorological society.

Meteorologists aren't climatologists, and I've been listening to them for years denying global warming. Their training is primarily for the short term, and just doesn't prepare them for understanding much over more than a few weeks.

Dunno how long it's going to take to change things, but right now it's pretty easy for Fox to find weather forecasters who really believe there's no global warming. And it's even easier to find ones who will claim that even if the globe is warming, it's not our fault.

[There Is No Spoon]

I was attempting to put into words what I feel about this issue and found the following headline on this here internets:

Exclusive: Harrowing predictions of climate scientists are coming true, as glaciers melt, forests burn, heat waves proliferate and freakish weather strikes in unexpected places. But the propagandists of global-warming denial have succeeded in silencing most politicians and the mainstream press, writes Robert Parry.

[jim williams]

it's either another example of good intentions paving the road to hell, naked cowardice, or complicity.

Why I'm inclined to think the latter two are the dominant causes/reasons, is because climate science isn't that complicated. Anyone that can master meteorology can surely achieve a sufficient enough knowledge and understanding of climatology to stomp the dog poopy outta any skeptic. I'm neither, and have been doing it for a very long time. Their problem is a very simple one -- they can't argue that ghg and their actions haven't been well understood for over a century and a half now, so given the increase of them, why waren't they or wouldn't/shouldn't we expect them to do what is expected of them? This is a particularly potent problem since they've offered (well, none that have survived scrutiny anyway) and their isn't an alternative explanation for the observed warming.

Their only argument is really no argment at all, e.g. "harsh winters elsewhere", etc, but rather represent an endless succession of dodges designed to put as much distance between them and the questions like the aforementioned -- why aren't the ghg doing their job as ghg? -- they have no answers for.

And the reality is, it's not just the "weather anchors" that have responsibility for this ignorance problem and the consequences of inaction it will inevitably result in, it's almost the entire so-called "liberal" media. This dwarfs in egregiousness and harm caused by their complicity in the march to war in Iraq, stemming from the same cause, being lapdogs as opposed to quasi-constitutional fourth branch watchdog with responsibilities to match. It is made far worse by the strength of the case for AGW as opposed to wmds, and the toll we'll no doubt see in lives and human misery.

Let's hope this time that a simple apology won't do, no?

I fully expect the sceptics to avoid the charges of lying, etc, and the shame and more they so richly deserve with something akin to "no one could have predicted that jets...." BS even while they've objected to the content of the memo in their faces for well over a decade now, when hell and the high waters arrive.

[Willinois]

(07-09-2012 07:51 PM)jim williams Wrote:  it's either another example of good intentions paving the road to hell, naked cowardice, or complicity.

I have to wonder if all the advertising time bought by the oil, coal and auto industries have something to do with it.

No response from them so far. I'm not the only one who left unhappy comments at their website.

[jim williams]

[I have to wonder if all the advertising time bought by the oil, coal and auto industries have something to do with it.

Indeed, which would indicate either coerced or willing complicity, given their minority status in the community http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/...obal.html. You could test your suspicions by seeing who sponsored/funded the show on PBS. If anything on local meteorologists, I'd say given the content of that link, they buy more silence than anything. Just imagine if the local meteorologists that so many still invite into their homes on a daily basis were allowed to voice their povs on AGW...

It's certainly easy to understand why they scoffed at the subject matter, given that status. That's the first thing I'd have confronted them with. Of course if you were to charge them with being bought stooges based on that as so many on the right have made a practice of charging almost the entirety of the climatology community, they'd find fault in that...lol

If they aren't bought mouthpieces, then they wear the dunce caps in their professional community. If they aren't convinced of that now, I'm absolutely certain the future will convince them.

[WIDem]

That's my new motto....

[pappy]

Bill Press had a corporate shill weatherman from AccuWeather on his show Monday who poo-pooed the idea that man made global warming was having much effect on the weather. He put much of it down to long term cycles in the weather patterns.

No matter how Press tried to point out things like glacial and arctic melt the corporate owned "expert" would not move off his very mealy mouthed denial.

On cue, NASA released numbers showing the first 6 months of this year to be the hottest 6 month period since records have been kept.

AccuWeather has supported legislation (put forward by Rick Santorum but which garnered no co-sponsors) that would have restricted the NWS from broadcasting weather information and alerts that many industries (transportation, fishing, etc.) rely upon. The purpose was to increase profitability of the AccuWeather products.

[jaxx]

Last 12 months the hottest ever

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday that the U.S. experienced the hottest 12-month period (ending in June) in the history of its record keeping. The numbers don’t even take into consideration last week’s record heat wave, but during the last half of June, all-time high temperatures were recorded in 170 cities. The National Climatic Data Center said that in the past 30 days, more than 4,500 new record highs have been set.

http://www.galesburg.com/news/x176235305...ttest-ever

That's the whole content on the subject from the paper. I can't see how the climate change deniers can deny this.

[jaxx]

Odds of record U.S. heat being a random event: 1 in 1.6 million
Posted by Brad Plumer on July 10, 2012 at 11:38 am

<..> Perhaps a chart can help. The National Climactic Data Center has just released its “State of the Climate” report for June 2012. The last 12 months in the mainland United States, it notes, were the warmest on record. What’s notable, however, is that every single one of the last 13 months were in the top third for their historical distribution (i.e., April 2012 was in the top third for warmest Aprils, etc).

“The odds of this occurring randomly,” notes NCDC, “is 1 in 1,594,323.”



Meteorologist Jeff Masters phrases things more plainly: “Thus, we should only see one more 13-month period so warm between now and 124,652 AD—assuming the climate is staying the same as it did during the past 118 years. These are ridiculously long odds, and it is highly unlikely that the extremity of the heat during the past 13 months could have occurred without a warming climate.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra...6-million/

Interesting article.