TV meteorologists can no longer ignore climate change
“This is just horrific”
By the time you read this, Hurricane Milton will have done considerable damage to Florida. Perhaps you’ve seen the video earlier this week of the TV meteorologist who choked up while preparing his viewers for the coming destruction.
John Morales is an experienced meteorologist for the NBC affiliate in Miami. On Monday, with a radar image next to him on screen showing a huge, red, angry looking storm heading toward Florida, Morales said, “It’s just an incredible, incredible, incredible hurricane.” He paused as his voice cracked and he told viewers how much the barometric pressure had dropped. He apologized for briefly losing his composure and then said, “This is just horrific.”
Here’s a link to the video on YouTube.
They want to be popular, not political
Most TV meteorologists have taken a middle path when it comes to including climate change in their weathercasts. As a rule, they see their jobs as being liked and trusted by viewers. They don’t want to become lightning rods for criticism. They don’t want to step into the middle of a topic that can be politicized.
In Des Moines, KCCI chief meteorologist Chris Gloninger left the station after getting a death threat from a viewer who didn’t like hearing about the impact of climate change during the nightly weathercast. Gloninger told the New York Times that the station hired him for just that reason but when viewers started complaining, Gloninger says the station asked him to tone it down.
Now, another “met” is saying enough is enough – that viewers need to know the truth about climate change. Morales, the Miami weather guy, tells Mother Jones magazine that viewers have known him the past 40 years as a “just-the-facts, non-alarmist guy.” But he’s changing his tune due to the onslaught of superstorms hitting the United States.
“The truth is that with climate driven extremes putting us in a place that we haven’t been before, it’s very difficult to stay calm, cool and collected,” Morales says. “[Climate change] is here, and it’s happening already, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“More voices will be sobbing on air”
Des Moines attorney and climate activist Channing Dutton has been urging TV weather people for years to take advantage of their opportunity to educate viewers about climate, but he gives them a failing grade.
“They’ve done a horrible job by ignoring the climate truth,” Dutton told me this week. “It’s money and the human desire to look away from the truth that causes meteorologists to pull their punches.”
Dutton saw the clip of Morales getting emotional on air and expects it won’t be the last time viewers see a meteorologist get alarmed. “As the kraken has been released, more and more voices will be sobbing on air,” Dutton says. “When the pro’s start crying on air, that is the science professional knowing what’s coming.”
Dutton urges the TV mets to use their allotted time, and the repeated exposure they get each night to be vigilant about climate change. “They’re so good at communicating because they’re pros.” Unfortunately, he says “we have to have the unholy catastrophe to knock the scales from viewers’ eyes.”
My guess is that climate change deniers are going to have a tougher time ignoring the unholy catastrophes. Every homeowner in Iowa is seeing their insurance rates skyrocket, and that’s assuming their insurance company doesn’t drop them. Insurers are losing money paying damages from flooding, wind, hail and wildfires. The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported in July that four insurance companies – IMT, Secura, Celina and Pekin – dropped Iowa customers, impacting tens of thousands of policyholders.
Will voters still want to “drill, baby, drill”?
I wonder how voters in North Carolina and Florida are going to be affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Will they still be willing to support the candidate who pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord? Will voters whose homes have been destroyed and who have lost family members to these killer storms support a guy who denies climate change and boasts that his only climate policy is “drill, baby, drill”?
Instead of the MAGA fantasy looking backward to an era of gas-guzzling cars, incandescent light bulbs and belching smokestacks, it’s time to support candidates who look forward, set goals, fund clean energy and make tough choices about energy policy.
It’s time for TV meteorologists to stop ignoring climate change and help viewers understand why the weather extremes we’re seeing are not normal. And it’s time for stations to support the meteorologists when they get pushback.
Meet the members of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, who cover a wide range of topics from across the state.
As someone who has family in southeast Louisiana, including a grandniece born during Katrina, and having to drive around Waterloo to pick up relief supplies for family in Cedar Rapids during the durecho, I can tell you no one takes these storms lightly anymore. I don't think local meteorologists can hype every two-inch snowfall as the storm of the century for the sake of producing dramatic promo ads and ignore that something is happening. We had a very wet spring and early summer and now the driest September-October in a long time. Even though I've been told weather drives ratings for local news, climate change is a "macro" issue is something all of us are largely oblivious to.
You make a perfect point about automobiles. Take a look at any car dealership and you see a fleet of mostly, if not all, supersized pickup trucks. I couldn't find a domestic model car with less than 70,000 miles the last time I car shopped in 2022. It's more trucks, bigger trucks, with big gas tanks and higher-sitting glaring headlights. Some may say it's for utility and safety, particularly in winter driving; but it's also a status symbol. When I took my son to Green Bay Packers training camp several years ago the players parking lot was full of Cadillac Escalades. And no one drives the speed limit. Set your cruise control at 5 miles over and see how many people pass you like you're a tree. Try telling someone their big pickup is contributing to climate change, not to mention wearing out our roads faster, and you'll get laughed at or called a snowflake. That's what happened to American Motors President George Romney, father of Sen. Mitt Romney, when he coined the phrase "gas guzzling dinosaurs" about 65 years ago. Other than ditching the cigarettes, not much has changed. Conspicuous consumption is alive and well. Damn the tornadoes, full speed ahead.
Dave, in my experience it isn’t the meteorologists who are ignoring climate change. As in the case of my former colleague Chris Gloninger at KCCI, it’s station management and corporate ownership, who are more concerned about hemorrhaging viewership and declining revenue, who are telling meteorologists not to emphasize climate change. They feel they can’t afford to offend and thus lose one more viewer, even the climate deniers. It’s sad when experts are told not to tell the scientific truth.