Activists want climate change on TV weather reports

Eric Berger in the Houston Chronicle: The fight for hearts and minds when it comes to climate change has moved to a new battleground: your television set. Climate change activists have launched a campaign, dubbed Forecast the Facts, that outs television meteorologists who are "deniers" of mainstream climate change science.

Led by several groups, including 350.org, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Citizen Engagement Lab, the campaign was spurred by recent surveys finding that half or more of TV forecasters hold contrarian climate change views. "TV meteorologists have as much, if not more, opportunity to talk to the American public about climate change than anyone," said Daniel Souweine, director of the Forecast the Facts drive.

"Ultimately, our goal is to change how the entire profession of meteorology reports on climate change," Souweine said. Specifically, he suggested, when a region is in the midst of a drought or heat wave, it is important to discuss the role climate change plays in amplifying such an event.

None of Houston's television forecasters made the campaign's list of "deniers," but it has nevertheless turned up the volume on the issue of climate change and tele­vision meteorology. Local forecaster Gene Norman of KHOU (Channel 11) said he doesn't welcome being dragged into what he calls the politicization of climate science.

"I'm concerned about this 'Forecast The Facts' campaign and the underlying assumption that TV meteorologists are somehow misleading the public and are espousing some kind of scientific heresy," Norman said....

Weatherman from the US Forest Service website