Year 3, Month 2, Day 10: We Don’t Do Long-Term. We Only Do Short-Term. Got It?

The Chicago Tribune writes about the epidemic of stupidity among TV weathertrons:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

But weather forecasters, many of whom see climate change as a natural, cyclical phenomenon, are split over whether they have a responsibility to educate their viewers on the link between human activity and the change in the Earth’s climates.

Only 19 percent of U.S. meteorologists saw human influences as the sole driver of climate change in a 2011 survey. And some, like the Weather Channel’s founder John Coleman are vocal in their opposition.

“It is the greatest scam in history,” wrote Coleman, one of the first meteorologists to publicly express doubts about climate change, on his blog in 2007. “I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; it is a SCAM.”

Jeebus, I hate these people. Sent February 4:

While there are still minor areas of uncertainty remaining in the scientific consensus on planetary climate change, it’s a fair bet that when television weather tycoon John Coleman calls global warming a “scam,” he is really describing his own work, not that of the world’s climatologists. The evidence corroborating humanity’s contribution to the greenhouse effect is overwhelming; as study after study adds to the collective understanding of climate scientists all over the world, the denialists’ position becomes increasingly untenable.

By advocating for improbable conspiracy theories and the views of fringe scientists, celebrity meteorologists undermine their own credibility. The fact that the denialist position is so common in the broadcast world simply demonstrates the corrosive power of big money’s influence in the media. Mr. Coleman’s term “scam” says more about the behavior of the fossil fuel industry and the info-tainment celebrities whose loyalty it has purchased than about scientific reality.

Warren Senders