America&’s television meteorologists are the primary source of climate information for most Americans, and are second only to scientists – who have much less access to the general public – in the level of trust they are given. Yet more than half of TV weather reporters don’t believe in human-induced climate change, even as our poisoned weather grows more extreme.
Forecast the Facts, a new campaign of 350.org, the League of Conservation Voters, and the new Citizen Engagement Lab, aims to turn the tide. The first call to action challenges the American Meteorological Society to vote next week for a strong climate change statement that rejects science denial…
So, I looked through the list of science-denying meteorologists (you’d think that would be an oxymoron, but nooooo…), and surprise surprise, guess who I found there? That’s right, none other than the DC metro area’s own Topper Shutt (of WUSA-TV). Among other ignorant, crazy things Shutt has said, is this tweet: “What percentage of the atmosphere is CO2 ? 0.03 % !! That’s driving climate?”
Actually, yes it is, as 99% of climate scientists will explain to Mr. Shutt if he’d just “shutt” up and listen for a change, instead of spewing forth his own hot air (that’s heating up the newsroom, if not the planet). For more Topper-of-the-charts idiocy, see here and here.
In sum, Topper Shutt is using his position as a popular weather dude in the Washington, DC area to push his anti-science, pro-dirty-energy-industry, ideologically-driven agenda. Which is 100% what the anti-climate-science movement is all about, because it’s certainly not based on reality, empirical evidence, or anything like that.
By the way, speaking of empirical evidence, 2011 worldwide “was hotter than every year last century except 1998.” Also, “Both NASA climate scientist James Hansen and University of Victoria’s Andrew Weaver said they expect that in the next few years the world will set yet a new record high temperature. 2010 tied for the hottest on record.” I’m sure it’s all just a fluke, though, or sunspots, or aliens, or spaghetti monsters, or…something, anything other than humans spewing out massive volumes of greenhouse gases year after year. Duh.
So why is Topper Shutt still employed by WUSA TV? There’s seriously noone else they can find to read us the (frequently incorrect, as today’s was – earlier this week they were saying it would be warm and dry today; great job, guys!) forecast for the next few days, without the corporate/extreme ideological agenda? What next, is WUSA going to hire a sportscaster who doesn’t “believe” that football’s a sport, or that a touchdown is worth 8 points not 6, or that a grand slam only scores 3 runs, or what? That would make as much sense as employing a “meteorologist” who doesn’t “believe” in anthropogenic global warming (on that topic, see Humans Are by Far the Dominant Cause of Global Warming: A Comprehensive Review of the Science.
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