The Joy Cardin show on Wisconsin Public Radio had a local meteorologist as a guest on Friday morning to talk about the changing season and what sorts of weather to expect this fall and winter. A guest called in asking if global warming is really caused by humans (insert massive eye roll and side eye here), and the meteorologist dodged the question by saying he didn’t think there was enough scientific knowledge yet to decide one way or another. He also said that he thought it would take us 50 to 100 years to make a decisive scientific verdict on the question. When people called in to continue the discussion (and presumably to correct this man’s view of where the science stands) Joy stated that the purpose of the show was to talk about the weather, the season changing, and what to expect for this years winter, and they would not be taking call-ins regarding climate change. She then let the meteorologist re-state his dodgy stance that we just don’t know yet, we don’t have the science yet.
I had to change the radio station a couple times during this drivel because I was driving and I could feel my blood pressure sky rocketing as I rage-listened to this meteorologist.
It turns out that the this meteorologist’s view point is not uncommon among meteorologists. So here is an important public service announcement: Meteorologists are not climate scientists. They are NOT EXPERTS IN THE FIELD OF CLIMATE SCIENCE.
The Joy Cardin show was followed by NPR’s On Point, during which Tom Ashbrook covered the recent report showing that CO2 numbers in the atmosphere are soaring at a record rate.
Can we please stop giving climate change deniers a public platform? The science has shown every time that rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere are causing global warming, and the rate that CO2 levels have risen since the industrial revolution is unprecedented. This isn’t a question anymore, folks. Shouldn’t this meteorologist have been vetted on the subject before hand? Joy Cardin’s producers couldn’t have honestly thought that if they had a meteorologist on the show the subject of climate change wouldn’t come up, could they?
And now, to make me feel a little bit better about this whole thing: Who’s a Climate Scientist?