Want the weather report without a sermon? Just need to know if it’s going to rain tomorrow and hope to find out without being hectored? Looking for a forecast, not a lecture? Then the Weather Channel is probably the place to avoid.
The Associated Press said Monday that the Weather Channel is taking an “active stance on climate change.” It will feature “the voices of 25 prominent people talking about the need to take action on climate change.”
The message, says the AP, “is unmistakable and is consciously designed to reach people who may be doubters about the causes of global warming.”
Making this story more interesting than it should be is the counterposition of John Coleman, meteorologist and a co-founder of the Weather Channel. He doesn’t buy the line that man is overheating his planet. A few years back, Coleman even produced a television documentary series called “Global Warming: The Other Side.” Now he has to watch his creation turned from a forecasting service into a propaganda tool.
But Coleman, who is no longer part of the Weather Channel, is not bitter.
“They certainly have the right to have an editorial perspective,” Coleman told the AP. “I feel it’s stupid, scientifically wrong, and it’s a great disservice. But there is freedom of speech.”
Yes, there is that, and we defend everyone’s right to speak their minds, even if what comes out is useless blather.
In the meantime, though, we think we’ll just get our weather forecasts from our smartphones. They won’t give us unwanted and unneeded editorial comment.
