Boston Blog

Will weather forecaster face climate change questions on book tour?

It will be interesting to hear whether CNN meteorologist Bonnie Schneider touches on climate change when she comes to Boston’s Museum of Science  tonight to launch her book tour. The BU j-school grad is promoting her book, Extreme Weather,  just as activists are taking aim at TV forecasters who don’t support the notion of climate change. 

Last week, a coalition of environmental groups launched a campaign called “Forecast the Facts.”  The site lists TV weather-people who are global warming  skeptics and calls on the American Meteorological Society “to issue a strong statement on climate change.”

It looks like Schneider is staying out of the fray. She’ not on the group’s list of skeptics, but Extreme Weather — which I have not read — sticks to service journalism. According to a Kirkus review of the book:The author capably dispenses basic survival advice, smartly skirting discussions about the possible cause of the weather conditions themselves (i.e., global warming, climate deterioration).

But, as the debate heats up, she’s likely to get questions from people who been listening to the Forecast the Facts group. From the site:  

Intense droughts, fierce storms, increased flooding. Scientists have been predicting for years that human-induced climate change would lead to a future of increasingly dangerous extreme weather events. That future is now upon us.

But when most Americans tune into their local weather report, they won’t hear a peep about climate change. Why? Because the majority of TV meteorologists don’t believe in it. That’s right: the professionals most responsible for informing the public about the weather are systematically missing the most important weather story of our lifetime.

Climate skeptics call the effort censorship.  Washington Post weather editor Jason Samenow is not a skeptic,  but he called the effort a “smear campaign.”

This confrontational approach is the wrong approach and promises to only further divide TV weathercasters whose views on the issue of climate change are already polarized….

Forecast the Facts”campaign makes no initiative to engage with weathercasters and enhance their education.

The campaign website asserts “viewers turning into their weather report deserve to be told the truth about climate change.” It’s hard to disagree that weathercasters should stay up to speed on climate change and pass along that knowledge to viewers. Maybe “Forecast the Facts” should be providing resources to make this happen rather than conducting a smear campaign.

 

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