A group of climate change activists recently started a campaign called "Forecast the Facts," focused on television meteorologists who have stated (subtly or bluntly) that they don't believe in anthropogenic global warming and/or climate change. They want to pressure these and other meteorologists around the country to tie their weather reports to the issue of climate change to make the public more aware of the link between the two. The campaign has been brought up with me three or four times now asking me how I feel about the topic, so I feel I should say something in public. The campaign is really starting to get to people, and not in a good way.
I'll begin with admitting my reluctance to write this given my bad track record at trying to talk about the issue. I wrote an admittedly-flawed diary back in June expressing my dismay over the bad spring tornadoes being portrayed as a definitive result of climate change. I wrote the diary while I was agitated, so I didn't clearly convey my thoughts. Ever since then, and due to my own inarticulate rant, it's felt like a "walking on eggshells" issue for me to talk about. DailyKos is a very animated place for discourse, and if the person with whom you're speaking detects a perceived hint of denialism (which is seemingly widely assumed of me ever since the tornado diary), the conversation turns very bitter very quickly. I don't want that to happen here.
I acknowledge and accept the theory of anthropogenic global warming resulting in climate change. Almost all reputable scientific studies and observations I've seen/read point to this. It is impacting our weather, although we're not sure to what extent it will impact tornadoes (my primary area of interest, and the point of most contention here on DKos).
With that being said, let me state that weather is not climate. One bad tornado season doesn't prove or disprove anything. If we have bad tornado seasons year after year, that's a statistical trend, and then we can call it climate. If we keep having temperature extremes (which has been happening for a while and shows no signs of stopping), then we can call it climate.
Meteorologists aren't in the business of climate, especially television meteorologists. A meteorologist's job is to predict the weather for the next week or so. It is a climatologist's job to predict climate trends for however long of a period they're studying. The "Forecast the Facts" campaign seems to have this confused. At the beginning of their mission statement, they state:
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.
The basis of that statement is flawed. To put it bluntly, while it's true that a vast amount of meteorologists don't believe in climate change (some for reasons other than political conservatism which I don't fully understand myself), it's not the meteorologist's job to link climate change to local weather. I understand that television meteorologists have a responsibility to educate as well as report, but there's only so much they can say about climate change before viewers start tuning out and management starts getting pissy. It's why I didn't go into broadcast meteorology back before I switched majors.
Further down in the mission statement, "Forecast the Facts" gets a bit more forceful:
Our goal is nothing short of changing how the entire profession of meteorology tackles the issue of climate change. We'll empower everyday people to make sure meteorologists understand that their viewers are counting on them to get this story right, and that those who continue to shirk their professional responsibility will be held accountable.
The part of the paragraph I bolded makes me uncomfortable. Some of the best meteorologists in the business don't believe in climate change and are large targets of this campaign. Among them are Oklahoma City's Gary England and Birmingham AL's James Spann, who are in two of the most tornado-prone areas of the United States, and each of whom have devoted decades of building viewer trust and keeping thousands safe when severe weather strikes. Forecast the Facts sounds like they're going to go on a witch hunt of climate change deniers -- no matter how experienced or great of a meteorologist -- and try to replace them with people who will focus more on messaging than forecasting.
The same thing has happened to me here at DailyKos regarding my weather diaries and the lack of climate change messaging therein. I've gotten stern and borderline-harassing messages/emails/Tweets/Facebook posts about focusing on weather instead of climate. The main issue people take with me is that I don't incorporate climate change into my emergency liveblog diaries. I was once told by someone (whom I'll keep anonymous) that it's imperative to "educate them while they're afraid of being sucked away, so itsticks [sic] in their mind the next time it hapens [sic]." Aside from being a very screwed-up form of education (preying on people's fears when they're most vulnerable? freakin' really?), that isn't my focus. My focus is on getting the word out that there's dangerous weather afoot. Weather is my forté, climate is not. I leave the climate issues to other much more educated diarists here at DailyKos.
I can't support Forecast the Facts because of that message, that we need to "hold accountable" those meteorologists who deny climate change. There are incredible meteorologists out there who do an outstanding job at forecasting, warning and protecting the public from dangers. It would be a disservice to the public to try and sacrifice quality in favor of messaging.
If the Forecast the Facts campaign decides that it wants to focus on education of meteorologists and the public, as opposed to flaming and vaguely threatening those whose minds are already made up, I'll get on board. Until then, this campaign's goal is fatally flawed.