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How to Save a Planet

How TV Weathercasters Went From Climate Skeptics to Champions

How to Save a Planet

Gimlet

Science, News, Society & Culture

4.81.6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2021

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nearly every night on local news stations across the country, Americans hear scientists talking about the weather…the local broadcast meteorologist, giving the weather report. But for years, those weather reports omitted one crucial element: the impact of climate change. In fact, many broadcast meteorologists were openly skeptical of climate change -- and spread that skepticism to their viewers. In today’s episode, we look at the decade-long campaign to convince weathercasters that climate change is real and turn the local TV news into a source for climate education. Guests: John Morales, Greg Fishel and Ed Maibach Calls to action: Show some love to broadcast meteorologists — tweet at them when you see they are talking about climate change and ask them to do more of it! And if they AREN’T talking about climate change, encourage them to join their colleagues. Check out the free climate reporting masterclass taught by meteorologist Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd. He’s former president of the American Meteorological Society, and host of the TV show and podcast, Weather Geeks. In the class, you’ll learn to understand the difference between weather and climate and how current science attributes extreme weather events to climate change. Check out our Calls to Action archive for all of the actions we've recommended on the show. Send us your ideas or feedback with our Listener Mail Form. Sign up for our newsletter here. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram. This episode of How to Save a Planet was produced by Lauren Silverman. The rest of our reporting and producing team includes Rachel Walzholz, Kendra Pierre-Louis, and Anna Ladd. Our supervising producer is Lauren Silverman. Our editor is Caitlin Kenney. Sound design and mixing by Peter Leonard with original music from Peter Leonard and Emma Munger. Our fact checker for this episode was Claudia Geib. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome not to save a planet, I'm Alex Bloomberg, and this is the show where we talk about

0:07.0

what we need to do to address the climate crisis, and how we make those things happen.

0:24.0

So here's a conundrum.

0:26.2

Climate change has massive impacts on the weather, the vast majority of scientists believe

0:31.7

in human-caused climate change, and every night on local news stations across the country

0:37.1

Americans hear scientists talking about the weather, the local broadcast meteorologist

0:42.5

giving the local weather report.

0:45.0

But here's the problem, a lot of these meteorologists, historically at least, doubted climate change.

0:55.4

Throughout the late 90s and 2000s, it was possible to tune into TV stations all over

0:59.8

the country, and hear broadcast meteorologists casting doubt on the scientific consensus

1:05.0

that human-caused climate change was real and serious.

1:08.2

Claiming, for example, that climate change isn't a big deal because the Earth's climate

1:12.2

has always changed.

1:13.2

Well, Glenn, the Earth's climate has changed since the day God put it here.

1:18.4

We have had these cyclical changes, and I believe that most of this is purely natural.

1:24.4

We're presenting alternate explanations to climate change that fly in the face of all scientific

1:28.9

consensus.

1:29.9

What really causes the Earth's climate to change?

1:32.1

Well, there's a growing number of scientists who feel the sun is the main driving force

1:36.4

behind Earth's constantly changing climate, or pointing out that CO2, it's a natural

1:42.2

gas.

1:43.2

How bad could it really be?

...

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