NYU Professor Says TV Weather Anchor Need to Straighten Up

Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor for New York University writes a piece in the Baltimore Sun taking Weather Anchors to task for goofing off and not doing the weather. He writes:

In the United States, weathercasters serve as our goofy national soothsayers — screwballs who don ridiculous hats and deliver wacky one-liners. But they're also trusted oracles who employ the latest scientific wizardry to divine the mysteries of the skies.

So why won't they discuss the science of climate change? According to the American Meteorological Society, we have "unequivocal evidence" that "human activities"— especially the burning of fossil fuels — have changed the earth's climate since the 1950s. But you rarely hear a weathercaster acknowledge it on the air.

Zimmerman ends his piece with:

The relaxed, cheery atmosphere of modern weather reporting prevents informed weathercasters from addressing climate change with the gravity it deserves. To be fair, some of them do mention global warming when discussing hurricanes and other emergencies. But it's hard to find room for that when half of their air time is taken up with humorous chit-chat. And it's hard to take them seriously when their job is to make you laugh.

Nobody is better positioned to teach the public about human-made climate change than our nightly weather reporters. But we'll have to change the climate of their reporting first.