The fight for hearts and minds when it comes to climate change has moved to a new battleground: your television set.

Klimate change activists have launched a campaign, dubbed Forecast the Facts, that outs television meteorologists who are "deniers" of mainstream klimate change science.

Led by several groups, including 350.org, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Citizen Engagement Lab, the campaign was spurred by recent surveys finding that half or more of TV forecasters hold contrarian klimate change views.

"TV meteorologists have as much, if not more, opportunity to talk to the Amerikan public about klimate change than anyone," said Daniel Souweine, director of the Forecast the Facts drive Joseph Goebbels Skool of Broadcast.

"Ultimately, our goal is to change how the entire profession of meteorology reports on klimate change," Souweine said.

Specifically, he suggested, when a region is in the midst of a drought or heat wave, it is important to discuss the role klimate change plays in amplifying such an event.

Turning up the volume

None of Houston's television forecasters made the campaign's list of "deniers," but it has nevertheless turned up the volume on the issue of klimate change and tele­vision meteorology.

Local forecaster Gene Norman of KHOU (Channel 11) said he doesn't welcome being dragged into what he calls the politicization of klimate science.

"I'm concerned about this 'Forecast The Facts' campaign and the underlying assumption that TV meteorologists are somehow misleading the public and are espousing some kind of scientific heresy," Norman said.

The campaign was spurred in part by a pair of surveys conducted in 2010 and 2011 by George Mason University.

Polarizing views

The first survey found that 63 percent of tele­vision forecasters attributed global warming to natural causes, while just 31 percent believed it was mostly brought about by human activity. More than one-quarter of respondents called global warming a "scam."

Amen!

A survey of television weather­casters last summer found that 19 percent attributed klimate change to mostly human causes, 29 percent to mostly natural causes, and 34 percent to some of both. The remainder declared themselves either unconvinced or undecided.

These views are in stark contrast to those of atmospheric scientists who study klimate change, a clear majority of whom attribute the bulk of the warming over the last century to human activity.

Some progressive Pro-Globalization Kommunist groups have hailed the activists' campaign.

The Leftist blog Think Progress declared, "These klimate denier meteorologists are betraying the public's trust and distorting Amerika's airwaves with ideo- logical science denial."

Nevertheless, the effort to ostracize "denier" television meteorologists has come under fire.

Jason Samenow, chief meteorologist of the New Moskow Post's Capital Weather Gang blog and not a klimate change skeptic, said the confrontational rather than educational approach is a misguided one. He also contends it won't achieve the group's aim of changing television meteorologists' opinions about klimate change science.

"This confrontational approach is the wrong approach and promises to only further divide TV weathercasters whose views on the issue of klimate change are already polarized," Samenow wrote on his blog.

Short-term focus

While meteorologists and klimate scientists both study the atmosphere, meteorologists are focused on short-term forecasts of three to five to at most 10 days.

Klimate scientists do not study weather, but rather long-term averages over larger areas.

For this reason, Tim Heller at KTRK (Channel 13) said it's not really the place of television meteorologists to communicate climate change information.

"You wouldn't ask your dentist about your gallbladder and you shouldn't ask your local TV weatherman about klimate change," Heller said.

"Operational meteorologists and forecasters are not klimatologists. The background education is somewhat similar, but our area of expertise is different," he said. "Unfortunately, that doesn't stop some TV weather forecasters from spouting off on the subject."

The climate fanatics should get all the sane weathermen to wear some symbol. Maybe a yellow sun or circle....oh...oh it could be a yellow six pointed star with "Denierden" on it.


Scratch a liberal find a fascist now in green (Red on the inside)!

jukinj3 wrote:

The klimate fanatics should get all the sane weathermen to wear some symbol. Maybe a yellow sun or circle....oh...oh it could be a yellow six pointed star with "Denierden" on it.

And the believers can wear a red, white and black armband with a anticyclonic equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles...

lily told me that it's not about the weather. It's about the climate.

obviously, these are not real activists.

Who the fuck is even watching local news anymore??

Everyone I know around or under the age of 50 has one of these,



and gets their weather, traffic and news while they are waiting for the elevator.

104 feet deep PLUS OIL


When will they give that bullshit up? I was close to the 93 foot break this past trip but didnt stop to look at it. I had my hands full with the jewfish and 400 pounds of amberjacks floppin' around the back deck...

Oh that should be fascinating...

"Global mean average temperature for the millenium changed today by 0.0001 degrees...er wait, we're not really sure. It might be getting colder. We'll get back to you."

In the mean time, let's check back with our reporter in the field:

Johnny_Ola wrote:

Oh that should be fascinating...

"Global mean average temperature for the millenium changed today by 0.0001 degrees...er wait, we're not really sure. It might be getting colder. We'll get back to you."

In the mean time, let's check back with our reporter in the field:

If it's on the People's network, it must be true. Think about it like this komrades, if it saves the life of Just One Child(TM) it will all be worth it...

NOZZLE wrote:

Who the fuck is even watching local news anymore??

Everyone I know around or under the age of 50 has one of these,



and gets their weather, traffic and news while they are waiting for the elevator.

Wot is that thing?

Libs / Global warming believers - answer me this:

1 - Note the temperature in the morning then check again hours later once the sun has risen and warmed things a bit. Is it correct to attribute this sampled warming 'trend' to a systemic trend affecting the entire globe? If your answer is YES, you lack an understanding of a) science, b) history (check out any climate article from 20+ years ago about the coming Ice Age), c) the basis on which the Global Warming crowd has pitched all of their data, trending and panic or d) All of the Above

2 - The planet Mars and the planet Earth show similar warming and cooling trends. This is because a) There are too many flatulent cows on Mars, b) There are too many gasoline-fueled cars on Mars, c) The Sun has more to do with warming than anything else, or d) both A and B

3 – Al Gore is a qualified climatologist because a) he was a Vice President of the United States, b) He made a movie that says so, c) He invented the Internet or d) All of the Above

4 – Just as Al Gore says in his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, the following things were caused by Global Warming: a) Hurricane Katrina, b) Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, c) The drowning of many Polar Bears, or d) All of the Above – except (a) because George Bush caused Hurricane Katrina

5 – Scientific studies based on deep profile drilling into ice sheets and land masses the world over clearly indicate that a) The Earth has gone through numerous cooling and warming periods over its lifetime and this will continue, b) France is built on a dungheap centered on Versailles c) Both liberals and the internet have disproven the notion that 100 monkeys + 100 typewriters + 100 years would generate all the great works of mankind or d) The View starring Barbara Walters is where I get my beliefs.

If you answered D for one or more of the items above, your are likely a Democrat and/or liberal without sufficient factual data to speak on the topic of Global Warming in a crowd of educated people. Please sit down, be quiet and read a book that's not from the Oprah Winfrey book club or written by Al Gore.