What If TV Weathercasters Told The Truth About Climate Change?

Wed, 2012-09-05 13:52Guest
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What If TV Weathercasters Told The Truth About Climate Change?

This is a guest post by Heather Libby.
 
It's been a pretty epic summer. Not really for me (mostly I've been working) but for the planet. You've probably noticed, but the weather outside is getting pretty...freaky. 
 
The USA is in the middle of its worst drought in twenty years (and in some states, since the Dust Bowl). There's an ongoing famine in the Horn of Africa, and food shortages in the Sahel. There've been floods and landslides in BC, the UK, Nigeria and Japan. There were days where a months worth of rain fell in less than 24 hours in southern Russia. In Siberia, there were forest fires so large, it's estimated they've burned nearly 100,000 square KM since June (even making my home Vancouver's air hazy for several weeks earlier this summer). I made a map of all the extreme weather events I knew about for my job at TckTckTck, which you can see here if you'd like to know more/get depressed.
 
I'd expected to hear more about these extreme weather events in the news, and in my ideal world, they'd even include a little context about why they were happening. But nearly all the news and weather reports I watched said the same thing: 
"Tragic disaster." 
"Isolated event." 
"We can never know what is causing this."
 
 
In response, I collaborated with my friend Kai Nagata on creating some smart, eco and socially conscious web videos. As you can imagine, I found our first one, 'WeatherGirl Goes Rogue', very therapeutic:
Tags: 
climate change
weathercasting
weather
Heather Libby
tv weather

Comments

Thu, 2012-09-06 10:55 — VJ

I love the video and have tweeted it several times, and have seen it on quite a few blogs.

As is bound to happen with statistics used in climate change arguments, there is some questioning of your numbers in the discussion here: 

http://planet3.org/2012/09/04/weather-report/

I do encourrage you and your friends to do more of this kind of satire.

Fri, 2012-09-07 13:10 — Joylette

Agree - it's so, SO frustrating that climate coverage in the media is so dismal, what with the amazing number of climate related happenings!

Love the weathergirl video --- we had a(n eerily) similar response to yours, actually, and started our own (hopefully) funny, informative climate news web series this spring, called Don't Just Sit There - Do Something!  DeSmogBlog folks may be especially interested to see the episode wherin we do some rapid-fire debunking of common skeptic myths.  Five myths in 6 minutes - check it out!

We decided that depression, denial, and apathy, though all normal responses to the scope of the problem, aren't going to help.  Instead, we've got to roll up our sleeves -- and get to Doing Something.

 

Tue, 2012-09-11 13:15 — Phil M

"informative climate news web series this spring, called Don't Just Sit There - Do Something!  DeSmogBlog folks may be especially interested to see the episode wherin we do some rapid-fire debunking of common skeptic myths.  Five myths in 6 minutes - check it out!"

Nice one Joylette, good job.

 

Thu, 2012-09-13 05:00 — Joylette

Please share!

[x]
President Obama Slams Climate Deniers on Twitter

You don't see this every day. President Barack Obama used Twitter today to call out climate deniers in Congress who are blocking political action to address climate change. 

The tweet links to this video released by Organizing for Action, the 501(c)(4) campaign group that promotes the President's national agenda. 

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