October 07, 2021

How TV Weathercasters Went From Climate Skeptics to Champions

41 minutes

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.

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