Local meteorologists are trusted sources on climate issue

Many Americans don't believe in anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change, or in climate change, period, but local TV meteorologists ae uniquely placed to help educate them. 

Nearly one-third of American adults say they don't worry much or at all about climate change. Many of them—disproportionately older, white Republican men—are drawn to conservative news media that firms up such opinions, Dan Schwartz reports for The Atlantic.

"These Americans, among others, are stuck in what researchers have called 'reinforcing spirals.' Social scientists have long assumed that most of the Americans misinformed about climate change were protecting a constructed reality, but that view is shifting," Schwartz reports. "A more recent study suggests that many in this cohort, which could include the 'dismissive,' are sincerely interested in the truth. These people aren’t suspicious of the evidence because it contradicts their view of the crisis, but because they don’t trust the available messengers—namely the scientific community and the mainstream media." 

But local news media are more trusted than nationwide news, so in 2010, scientists and journalists formed a nonprofit called Climate Central that aims to better educate meteorologists, and through them Americans, about climate change, Schwartz reports.

"By 2012, Climate Central was working with 10 weathercasters. By the end of 2013, it was working with 100, and it had quadrupled its production of localized reports. The number of participating weathercasters continued to grow, and with more exposure to trusted climate-change information, they began to see climate change for what it was. By 2017, 95 percent of TV weathercasters agreed that the climate was indeed changing," Schwartz reports. "By 2020, 80% acknowledged that human activity was a major reason.

"    The facts here did what facts sometimes do when people are actually searching for the truth: They changed minds. Now weathercasters, with their eyes open to the crisis, are better positioned than anyone else to guide the remaining Americans through the same transition. One 2013 study, frequently cited, found that the more people liked a TV weathercaster, the more likely they were to be positively influenced by that weathercaster’s discussion of climate change."

"We never looked at it like, 'We’re the ones in charge'," Program Director Bernadette Woods Placky told Schwartz. "It was a relationship. It was a partnership."