Barack Obama to make climate change case to weather forecasters
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Version 0 of 1. Barack Obama has signed up for eight interviews with TV meteorologists on Tuesday to defend a landmark report against those who deny climate change. The interviews were scheduled as part of a carefully co-ordinated rollout of the National Climate Assessment. The exhaustively detailed account of the impact of climate change on America will be formally launched at the White House on Tuesday. White House adviser John Podesta told reporters the report was unequivocal: there would be no region and no economic sector that would remain untouched by climate change. “If you want to try to side with the polluters and argue to the American public that climate change is not happening – today, tomorrow, and certainly in the future – that's going to be a losing argument,” he said. He described the findings as “actionable science”. Obama will use the report to build public support for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants, the core pillar of his climate plan. Podesta confirmed that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be proposing new rules for power plants in early June. The success of the EPA plan – and another energy efficiency measure to be announced later in the week – hinges in part on Obama's ability to persuade the American public of the urgency of acting on climate change. TV weather forecasters remain among the most trusted sources, according to opinion polls. Some 89% of Americans rely on local television for their weather news, according to a 2012 report from the Pew research centre. The same report said 62% of Americans trust television weather reporters on climate change far more than they do climate scientists. The problem is, however, that there is a strong current of climate scepticism among weather forecasters. Some of the most prominent television meteorologists deny a human cause in climate change – or insist there is no evidence of climate change. A 2010 study by George Mason University's centre for climate change communications found that only 19% of TV weather forecasters accepted that human activity was the main driver of climate change. “Many TV meteorologists remain climate change sceptics, in part because they are skilled at forecasting weather over short time periods, which can make them doubt long-range projections from climate science computer models,” wrote Andrew Freedman, who covers climate change for Mashable. "Many TV meteorologists also lack specific training in climate science." Bill Clinton and Al Gore were blindsided by that strong strain of climate scepticism when they adopted a similar strategy in the 1990s, Freedman writes. Meanwhile, the campaign group Forecast the Facts complained that broadcast meteorologists do not do enough to explain how climate change is contributing to heatwaves, drought, and other extreme weather events. "I don't talk about [global warming] on television … because I don't see it as part of my short-term forecast,” the group quoted Tampa weatherman Steve Jerve as saying. “I don't think it's good for a scientist to talk about an opinion." The meteorologists interviewing Obama on Tuesday include: Al Roker, co-anchor of NBC's Today Show; Ginger Zee, meteorologist on ABC's Good Morning America; John Morales, chief meteorologist of NBC 6 in Miami, Florida, and Jim Gandy, meteorologist of WLTX-TV in Columbia, South Carolina. |