Month: July 2023

Meteorologist Chris Gloninger quit his job reporting the weather on Des Moines TV news because he’d been receiving death threats for talking about climate change during his weather reporting. This is yet another concerning data point in the general anti-science, anti-media trend being fomented by an aggrieved sector of America continuing its cult-like turn.

In spite of the evidence all around us, from a century’s worth of temperature tables to the increase in the number and size of forest fires, rising sea levels, and more days when it’s too hot for planes to take off, too many people see the world through a warped ideological lens and choose to defend that view with threats and violence. To quote the AP article Harassment of TV meteorologists reflects broader anti-science, anti-media trends:

Gloninger’s experience is all too common among meteorologists across the country who are encountering reactions from viewers as they tie climate change 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 it’s 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.”

For more, see this MSNBC piece, Meteorologist on receiving death threats over his climate crisis reports: