‘You should have seen this note’: US meteorologists harassed for reporting on climate crisis
Meteorologists face hostility and threats from viewers as they tie climate change to extreme temperatures and weather T he harassment started to intensify as the TV meteorologist Chris Gloninger did more reporting on the climate crisis during local newscasts outraged emails and even a threat to show up at his house. Gloninger said he had been recruited, in part, to shake things up at the Iowa station where he worked, but backlash was building. The man who sent him a series of threatening emails was charged with third-degree harassment. The Des Moines station asked him to dial back his coverage, facing what he called an understandable pressure to maintain ratings. I started just connecting the dots between extreme weather and climate change, and then the volume of pushback started to increase quite dramatically, he said in an interview with the Associated Press. So, on 21 June, he announced that he was leaving KCCI-TV and his 18-year career in broadcast journalism altogether. Gloningers experience is all too common among meteorologists across the country who are encountering reactions from viewers as they tie the climate crisis to extreme temperatures, blizzards, tornadoes and floods in their local weather reports. For on-air meteorologists, the anti-science trend that has emerged in recent years compounds a deepening skepticism of the news media. Many meteorologists say its a reflection of a more hostile political landscape that has also affected workers in a variety of jobs previously seen as nonpartisan, including librarians, school board officials and election workers. For several years now, Gloninger said, beliefs are amplified more than truth and evidence-based science. And that is not a good situation to be in as a nation. Gloningers announcement sent reverberations through a national conference of broadcast meteorologists in Phoenix, where many shared their own horror stories, recalled Brad Colman, president of the American Meteorological Society. They say, You should have seen this note. And they try to take it with a smile, a lighthearted laugh, Colman said. But some of them are really scary. Meteorologists have long been subjected to abuse, but that has intensified in recent years, said Sean Sublette, a former TV meteorologist and now the chief meteorologist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper in Virginia. More than once, Ive had people call me names or tell me Im stupid or these kinds of harassing type things simply for sharing information that they didnt want to hear, he said. A decade ago, far fewer TV meteorologists were talking about the climate crisis on air, although they wanted to do so, said Edward Maibach, the director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, in Fairfax county, Virginia. The Weather Channel gave its first climate reporter, scientist Heidi Cullen, a dedicated show in 2006. She faced bitter and sexist resistance from some viewers, including conservative leaders, as she challenged other TV forecasters to address global warming in their reporting. Climate Matters, a National Science Foundation-funded project, piloted in 2010 and fully launched in 2012 to support reporting on the climate crisis by providing data analysis, graphics and other reporting materials. Now TV meteorologists across the country report on the climate crisis, though Maibach said they dont always use those words. It is increasingly common to at least show its effects, he said, like highlighting the trend of more days in a year hitting temperatures above 90F (32C). Even if that kind of reporting resonates with most people, the criticism can be the loudest. If you stop reporting on relevant and important facts about whats going on in your community because youre hearing from the one out of 10, it means you are not serving the other nine out of 10, Maibach said. Some meteorologists have seen public interest in the climate crisis grow even in largely red states as flooding, drought and other severe weather has ravaged farmland and homes. Jessica Hafner, chief meteorologist at Columbia, Missouris KMIZ-TV, said that with the exception of a few hecklers, shes seen people respond well to data-based reporting because they want to know whats going on around them. The meteorologist Matt Serwe, who used to work in Nebraska, said the livelihoods of farmers who live there depend on the weather, so they take climate change seriously. You want to know how you can best succeed with these conditions, he said. Because at that point, its survival. Its not just a problem in the United States. Meteorologists in Spain, France, Australia and the UK also have been subjected to complaints and harassment, said Jennie King, the London-based head of climate research and policy at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.