Saturday, September 13, 2008

"Global warming increases the intensity of hurricane coverage"

Over at Gawker, Dashiell Bennett draws a droll circle around a pervasive media tic when covering storms: Why do we anthropomorphize the weather? The standard convention of naming large tropical storms began as way to simply keep track of multiple simultaneous events, but it also has the unusual side effect of allowing people to believe that the storm is literally out to get them. Hurricane Ike is currently "ravaging" South Texas with his "ferocious" winds and "roaring" floodwaters and will soon spread his "wrath" across the whole Gulf Coast. This time it's personal!....

No comments: