Republican Meteorologist: Climate Change Has Nothing To Do With Al Gore
We are seeing a bit of a gush of these types of articles lately. Blowback against the TeaParty insanity? We can only hope. By my informal reckoning the percentage of die-hard right wing nuts can be measured by Shrub's lowest approval rating, which as I recall was about 28%. I wonder how many of those in the 20 point spread (between that 28% and the normal 48% or so that tend to vote R) Obama can peel off if Romney continues to align himself with the kooks?
Republican Meteorologist: Climate Change Has Nothing To Do With Al Gore
By Climate Guest Blogger on Apr 20, 2012 at 11:30 am
by Paul Douglas, via Bloomberg Businesweek
Im a moderate Republican a fan of small government, light regulation and market solutions. A serial entrepreneur, I founded companies that invented 3-D television weather graphics and the first app on a cell phone. Im a Penn State meteorologist. My day-job since 1979: tracking weather for TV news.
If you know anything about American politics these days, and follow the climate war at all, you might anticipate with some confidence that I agree global warming is a hoax. Thats a shame, and I hope it changes soon.
In the 1980s I was skeptical that an upward blip in global temperatures was the result of manmade gases. Then the blips persisted. By the mid-90s I began to see them as unsettling changes. The weather was becoming erratic and even more unpredictable than usual. Storms were more frequent and intense. Curious, I began including climate statistics in daily TV weather segments, like annual trends in flash-flooding, hail, summer humidity, fewer subzero nights and decreased snowfall.
Mixing climate and weather was a problem in local TV news, with its reliance on Q-scores and market research. Finally, in 2008 I lost my job in local TV. I continued to write a daily column for the Star Tribune. Mixing climate news in with weather reports made me a lightning rod for skeptics there, too. The flame-mail was relentless. Stop proselytizing, you crazy liberal climb back under your rock! wrote one reader. Thats one of the tamer, more family-friendly messages Ive received.
I dont take speaking out on this topic lightly....
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/20/468255/republican-meterologist-climate-change-has-nothing-to-do-with-al-gore/