When Did Talking About the Weather Become Political?

[Suzanimal]

Even trusting your local weather announcer is political these days.

Take the battle in Congress over the renewal of a grant to help television meteorologists incorporate climate change into their weather reporting. Four Republican senators have called for an investigation, calling it indoctrination. Democrats last week moved to protect the funding, which is administered through the National Science Foundation.

“Research designed to sway individuals of a various group, be they meteorologists or engineers, to a politically contentious viewpoint is not science — it’s propagandizing,” the senators wrote to the foundation’s inspector general.

The four Republicans — James Inhofe and James Lankford of Oklahoma, Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky — requested an investigation into whether the grants, which have been in place for almost ten years, violated federal law.

Scientists who work with meteorologists on climate change dispute the accusations. Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, whose research center helps distribute the grants, noted that climate change is established science and that most Americans acknowledge that.

Early studies by Mr. Maibach’s group found that the public trusts TV weathercasters more than they trust national news figures. Encouraging forecasters to discuss climate change, he said, helps show Americans that rising temperatures are not a distant threat, but affect them today.

The amount of funding at stake, $4 million, is tiny by government standards. But the results, according to Mr. Maibach, have been dramatic: In 2012 there were only 55 on-air mentions of climate change in weather reports across the country. Last year, there were 879.

...

“Climate science is really well established, like gravity,” said Benjamin Strauss, president of Climate Central, a nonprofit science and news organization that has received National Science Foundation funding.

...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/c...mid=tw-nytimes

[thoughtomator]

When it became the subject of a government grant.

And by the weasel wording of the article ("in place for almost ten years") it's clear that it was one of Obama's first initiatives, as it's been 10 years minus 6 months since Obama got sworn in.

[Valli6]

I swear, after Trump first took office, for weeks it seemed like my local weather (TV) kept warning it would rain the next day - but then it kept turning out to be nice and not rain at all. Bad weather was predicted everyday. I began to wonder if they were trying to encourage people to feel more negative in general, because Trump was president. Stopped getting weather info from them.

[Suzanimal]

I swear, after Trump first took office, for weeks it seemed like my local weather (TV) kept warning it would rain the next day - but then it kept turning out to be nice and not rain at all. Bad weather was predicted everyday. I began to wonder if they were trying to encourage people to feel more negative in general, because Trump was president. Stopped getting weather info from them.

The Weather Channel is the worst. Their front page is usually full of gloom and doom Global Warming Climate Change news.

[Anti Federalist]

When Did Talking About the Weather Become Political?

When you used government proxies to stick a gun in my face, extort half my income every year, to pay to propagandize people with your stupid disaster porn into thinking their car and outdoor BBQ is going to result in a catastrophic end of the world as we know it scenario and that the only way to solve it is to give up what's left of my liberty to international, non representative governing bodies who will stick me a stack a prole cubicle in a "green" city and regulate every single aspect of my life.

That's when.

[Anti Federalist]

The amount of funding at stake, $4 million, is tiny by government standards. But the results, according to Mr. Maibach, have been dramatic: In 2012 there were only 55 on-air mentions of climate change in weather reports across the country. Last year, there were 879.

Propaganda is cheap.