Friday, December 7, 2012

Climate Change: Why It's Not Changing the Minds of Weathercasters




With over 700 heat records broken in June and the ferocity of Hurricane Sandy, one would think weathercasters would address the possibility and threat of global warming. The reason for this, Rolling Stone's Jeff Goodell believes, is the weathercaster's refusal to accept the evidence of global warming made apparent by climate scientists.

Goodell argues that most weathercasters do not have advanced credentials and are just bright personalities like Al Roker. By ignoring global warming, they are failing to fulfill a scientific duty on a nightly basis. More than a quarter of today's meteorologists call global warming a "scam."

Co-founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman, has said that global warming is "a fictional, manufactured crisis." How does somebody required to know a great deal about weather and its now unpredictable patterns not believe clear and close to indisputable evidence of global warming?

Another example of contradiction is weatherman David Bernard, who has gone on to call global warming "a global wealth redistribution." Bernard, a weatherman for a CBS affiliate in Miami, is now moving toward network television with CBS as a severe weather consultant. Bernard, however, found it more important to post 131 pictures of his dog on Facebook in June rather than pictures that should have been of the extreme high temperatures that month.

What we must do is incorporate and address global warming in our weather forecasts. Though it is difficult to incorporate it within such a short segment, weathercaster Jim Gandy has found an audience for the subject through his segment titled "Climate Matters" in Columbia, South Carolina.

Global warming is not a new idea. Why then do people, yet alone weathermen, still not understand that human activity is causing abnormal climate patterns? The solution to educating society about global warming is simple: it must be incorporated in weather segments by experts, not meteorologists with a bright personality.




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