Posted on 04/14/2005 9:10:57 AM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative
Washington (CNSNews.com) - Proclaiming itself as the "pre-eminent provider of weather information," The Weather Channel may appear politically passive and objective to most of its viewers.
Yet, the network has become an aggressive force in the battle against "global warming," even sending its sole climatologist to a recent Capitol Hill news conference to defend the science behind the climate change theory and to promote economic solutions to the problem.
The Weather Channel (TWC), which boasts on its website that it "understands and cares about the connection between weather and people's lives," also served as a consultant and allowed the use of its name and logo in the 2004 "global warming" disaster film, "The Day After Tomorrow." That's the same film that was heavily hyped by former Democratic Vice President Al Gore and the liberal group Moveon.org.
On March 15, TWC's climatologist Heidi Cullen appeared at the U.S. Senate Dirksen Building to support a disputed scientific report that asserted human activity was causing a catastrophic warming of the North Pole.
On that day, Cullen said she did not want to be seen as an "advocate" for human-caused climate change. "[F]or me even ... coming and giving a talk like this (on Capitol Hill), I try to be very careful because I don't want to be an advocate.
"There are enough advocates out there, there is not that many scientists out there just talking about [global warming]," Cullen told Cybercast News Service in an exclusive interview.
Yet during a panel discussion, Cullen stated that it is scientifically undeniable that humans are causing the earth to warm. Cullen participated on the same panel as Robert Corell, the chair of the controversial international Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), which purports to show that the earth is experiencing "rapid and severe climate change in the Arctic."
"There are certain aspects of the science that are really so strong and so solid, we should just say it's good [so] we can move on and talk about the rest of the issues.," Cullen, formerly with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said at the news conference.
"We know that CO2 (carbon dioxide) is a greenhouse gas and it is warming the earth. We have known this for over 200 years now. We know that CO2 concentrations are increasing because of human activities. We can't debate to a certain extent anymore. We know this is clear, the globe is warming," she added
"Simple measures" could be implemented to limit U.S. energy emissions, Cullen stated. "The UK has cut emissions by 15 percent and it hasn't hurt their economy."
Cullen also appeared to reveal her personal ideology when she joined Hollywood actors at the May 2004 premier of "The Day After Tomorrow," the politically charged and heavily publicized film that cost $125 million and provided what Gore called "a rare opportunity to have a national conversation about what truly should be seen as a global climate emergency."
As the celebrities arrived and posed for the paparazzi that night, a mock snow machine overhead churned out snow flakes on the celebrity carpet.
Facts or opinions?
Paul Iaffaldano, the senior vice president for network sales at The Weather Channel, also shared "the downy walkway with the stars," at the New York premiere of the film, according to Advertising Age magazine. "[The Weather Channel] acted as consultants. They used our hurricane graphics in the movie. And they (the movie) showed the Weather Channel reporting, factually, what was going on around the world," Iaffaldano was quoted as saying in the June 7, 2004 edition of Advertising Age.
Not only did The Weather Channel allow its logo and graphics to be used in the movie, the channel produced a half-hour television special timed to coincide with the movie's release called, "Extreme Weather Theories." The goal of the television special was to explore the science behind catastrophic changes to the climate, according to Advertising Age magazine.
On May 25, 2004, Cullen partially defended the scientific logic for "The Day After Tomorrow" during an interview with USA Today. "Some of the events in the movie, we're beginning to see already," Cullen said. "But of course everything is condensed and dramatized."
The Weather Channel's participation in the disaster film has produced criticism from groups and individuals who are skeptical about the idea of catastrophic human-caused "global warming."
"The Weather Channel has evolved from a station providing pure weather information to one providing what they perceive to be entertainment," said Patrick J. Michaels, an environmental sciences professor at the University of Virginia, in an interview with Cybercast News Service.
"I am not surprised that [The Weather Channel's] take on global warming has gone from neutral to more lurid," said Michaels, noting that the network's emphasis on climate change is consistent with its "foray into the genre of tragedy television." The Weather Channel has in the past offered up such programming as "Tornado Week" and "Storm Stories."
Michaels, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of a new book "Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media," accused TWC of "attempting to move opinion in the United States" on climate change through its association with "The Day After Tomorrow." He also criticized Cullen for her defense of the scientific premise of the film.
"The movie is completely farfetched. There is no evidence for sudden glaciations or ice induced tsunamis that will wash away the Statue of Liberty. To try and put a shed of scientific credibility to that movie is a difficult stretch," Michaels said.
Myron Ebell, director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the free market Competitive Enterprise Institute, a group skeptical of catastrophic human-caused climate change, echoed the view that TWC was attempting to "entertain" its viewers through its involvement in the "Day After Tomorrow."
"The Weather Channel's involvement with the silly sci-fi disaster movie, 'The Day After Tomorrow' is a good indication of how they really see global warming. It's an opportunity to entertain rather than to educate the public about the science," Ebell told Cybercast News Service.
Cullen joined the The Weather Channel in July of 2003. In December of that year the network announced that it was officially taking a position that "a significant portion of the current warming is a result of human activities."
Following the announcement, titled, "The Weather Channel Position Statement on Global Warming," Cullen began a regular segment called "Forecast Earth," to focus on climate change and other environmental issues.
The TWC statement went even further by asserting that "humans are also changing the climate on a more localized level" through the eradication of "vegetation by buildings and roads.
"Urbanization and deforestation can cause an increased tendency for flash floods and mudslides from heavy rain," The Weather Channel stated.
At her Capitol Hill appearance, Cullen dismissed the opinion held by those who are skeptical of catastrophic human-caused "global warming."
"We keep saying that there is sound science here, and I am beginning to think that we are probably a little bit paranoid about the scientific component," Cullen said. "Because within the media itself there is so much energy being put into various aspects of the problem that seem to try to tear down the science."
Cullen said The Weather Channel is attempting to provide "the consensus statement, which doesn't try to blow everything out of proportion and say that we need to go live in huts."
But Michaels criticized Cullen for her appearance on the same stage as the authors of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report, who he said "were certainly alarmists."
Michaels added that climate change is an issue that "prospers in a culture of exaggeration and politicization." He noted that the earth has seen much warmer periods than the present.
"The earth was warmer than it is now for three millennia between 4 and 7,000 years ago. Alaska was warmer than it is now by two degrees between 9 and 11,000 years ago and that is when human cultures up there began to flourish," Michaels said.
Michaels did concede that "the Arctic is warming, but the fact of the matter is the integrated warming of the Arctic in recent decades has yet to exceed the integrated warming of the Arctic that peaked around 1935. It will eventually exceed it but right now ... not yet."
Cullen presented a series of Weather Channel reports following her trip to Alaska in 2004, linking human-caused "global warming" to melting permafrost, coastal erosion, expanding spruce beetle infestations and the northward expansion of the West Nile Virus.
Ebell of CEI said TWC should stick to what it does best. "The Weather Channel does a good job giving accurate weather forecasts, but forecasts aren't very exciting. It looks like their global warming features are intended to add a little excitement, but they wouldn't do that if they weren't alarming," said Ebell.
"So instead of just giving the facts about global warming, they are featuring scare stories," he added.
I read Accu-weather (which predicted the winter we just experienced last summer) or Underground Weather for my information. Weather Channel sucks when it's predicting my weather and the disaster specials are hokey and misleading.
Heidi, who is finishing her assignment as a postdoctoral research scientist on a NOAA Climate and Global Change Fellowship at the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction in New York, comes to NCAR with expertise in two distinct areas: history and climate variability. She earned a bachelor's degree in Near Eastern religions and history from Juniata College before going to Columbia University for a bachelor's in engineering and operations research and a Ph.D. in climate variability.
Combining her interests, Heidi has studied historic drought and climate variability in the Middle East as well as the application of forecasts to water resource management in the La Plata Basin of South America. Her doctoral research at Columbia focused in part on the dynamics of the North Atlantic Oscillation as well as its impact on freshwater supplies in the Middle East.
In ESIG and CGD, she will test whether the use of climate models can improve water resource management at the world's largest hydroelectric plant: the Itaipu Binacional hydropower facility, which provides power to Brazil and Paraguay. The challenge is to prevent flooding without unnecessarily curbing energy generation.
Reminds me of the knuckle-dragging mass murderer sawing off a victim's head with a dull knife, smiling broadly and announcing...
"islam is a religion of peace!"
Heidi, you twinkletoes twit, you become an advocate just by showing up!
Of course, your participation in the movie The Day After Tomorrow had already removed all doubt as to your position.
Now the only thing you failed to tell us is how many research papers you have presented, published or otherwise added to the body of knowlege about the absurd claims.
Ditto, actually that her parents named her Heidi, and she didn't change her name, is all you need to know.
For a post doctorate scientist, this is an absurd statement: 100% correct, and 100% useless in the present propaganda context.
Of course humans are causing the earth to warm by simply existing. If we all switched to a cave dweller existence and eliminated all conveniences developed post-8000 B.C., that statement would still be true.
The really useful statement would be "is it scientifically undeniable that people are causing global warming that the natural climate dynamics of the earth can't compensate for?"
I'm not holding my breath to hear it.
But how does MTV weigh in on this important issue.....
Does it really matter if climate change is human-caused or not? Natural change keep, human change reverse? The much more important question is what climate do we want and what technologies can we develop to get it and keep it there? What sets man apart from beast is we change our environment to we want. It's very likely that the optimum climate for supporting human quality of life is warmer than it currently is. But most scientists aren't even studying the big question or researching technologies to manage the climate.
100 years ago population increases forced us to develop technologies to manage most of the world's fresh water. Now we can live and farm wherever we want. This global warming problem is just a repeat of the technological challenges we faced managing water.
There is no science. That also explains why TWC forecasts are wrong so often --- they do not believe in science.
"The Weather Channel does a good job giving accurate weather forecasts,
----
Actually, not really.
Want to see global climate change, Ms. Heidi? Just wait until one the Indonesian volcano's erupts like Pinatubo in the Philippines did in the early 1990's. If the sun's heat is blocked due to volcanic ash, I'll bet you'll turn up your car's heater to get to work, even in Atlanta, and the heck with the effect on global warming.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.