UPDATE: 11/25 I now have word from a reputable source close to TWC that Cullen was indeed part of the layoff. – Anthony
I’ve been following this story since yesterday, but the details kept being somewhat nebulous. Since WaPo has it, I’ve decided it is safe to consider reasonably accurate now. It looks like TWC has ditched their entire environmental unit, and possibly also host Heidi Cullen, who once said:
“If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming.” “Meteorologists are among the few people trained in the sciences who are permitted regular access to our living rooms. And in that sense, they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy.” “If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval.”
Needless to say, I and many other current and former TV meteorologists took exception to the issue. I posted on it almost two years ago here.
TWC’s Heidi Cullen
From the Washington Post: (h/t to Jason Samenow)
NBC Fires Weather Channel Environmental Unit
Some on-camera meteorologists also let go
*A very cold evening: PM forecast update*
NBC Universal made the first of potentially several rounds of staffing cuts at The Weather Channel (TWC) on Wednesday, axing the entire staff of the “Forecast Earth” environmental program during the middle of NBC’s “Green Week”, as well as several on-camera meteorologists. The layoffs totaled about 10 percent of the workforce, and are the first major changes made since NBC completed its purchase of the venerable weather network in September.
Keep reading for more on The Weather Channel cuts…
The layoffs affected about 80 people, but left the long-term leadership of the network unclear, according to a source who requested anonymity due to the continuing uncertainty at the station.
Among the meteorologists who was let go was Dave Schwartz, a Weather Channel veteran and a viewer staple due to his lively on camera presentations. USA Today reported that meteorologists Cheryl Lemke and Eboni Deon were also let go.
The timing of the Forecast Earth cancellation was ironic, since it came in the middle of NBC’s “Green is Universal” week, during which the network has been touting its environmental coverage across all of its platforms. Forecast Earth normally aired on weekends, but its presumed last episode was shown on a weekday due to the environmentally-oriented week.
Forecast Earth was hosted by former CNN anchor Natalie Allen, with contributions from climate expert Heidi Cullen. It was the sole program on TWC that focused on global climate change, which raises the question of whether the station will still report on the subject. Cullen’s future role at the network is not known.
By Andrew Freedman | November 21, 2008; 5:00 PM ET
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When local TV stations let people go, they usually try to purge all trace of them from their web site immediately. http://www.weather.com/tv/personalities/ may still be intact, at least it still has everyone listed as gone.
41 “Meteorologists & Personalities” and 4 “Experts”.
I added an entry to http://climate.weather.com/blogs/ specifically the “Arctic climate drama” that appears to have been in July. I can see why the Forecast Earth crew was layoff fodder. I don’t know if anyone is there to approve posts.
BTW, Forecast Earth airs at 1700 EST today, I’ll see if it’s replace or if they’re just running the shows in the can.
Will Small,
You are of course kidding, right?
For what it’s worth, Dave Schwartz was on the Weather Channel this Saturday afternoon with Christina Abernathy. Perhaps it’s an upcoming nonrenewal of contract, but he’s still there today.
Will-
UAH Global temperatures are averaging a mere 0.0149 degrees above average for this year and three global temperatures metrics have show a ten year decline. To what science and facts are you clinging to?
The Weather Channel … ha ha ha!!!
Thanks for the laughs! I’ll miss you.
Well in August we left warm hot sunny Scotland for South Florida.
We were in lovely Naples and Faye came ashore at Marco Island.
Next week it has Gustave.
We watched the Weather Channel; which way was Gustave going?
No no no it is going up the east coast of Florida heading for Georgia.
No no no no it could go West towards Miami.
Wrong maybe more SW towards Cuba and follow a similar track to Faye.
Wrong again it will make land fall in Mexico.
Some gent – a meteorologist – on the Weather Channel states with total conviction “One thing is for sure Gustave is doing exactly what we have predicted!”
He clearly believed it!
What utter rubbish!!
We then had Hannah which was going to make land fall in Spain.
Ike was nothing to worry about just an un-organised tropical storm!!
I thought BBC Weather was off the wall.
Last week temperatures in “NE Scotland are WELL ABOVE average for the time of year”. We are on snow patrol tonight, roads closed, glaciers moving south!
Will Small (12:16:18) :
You sound very certain of yourself. Many here are also fairly certain and disagree with you. You need to be specific and as technical as you can if you want to try to sway others to your view.
I would venture to guess that your view is developed because you trust the messages in the MSM and the various advertising campaigns. Further, I would guess that you are not ready to accept that what you are hearing may have been started by a group of advocates who latched onto CO2 as a good boogeyman and then after the initial proliferation, many others are now accepting of the story and in some sense, I don’t “blame” them.
I guess that’s why my view is that the only way around this is to go back to the underlying science and to understand when empirical data is good and when it isn’t. That many prominent advocates can’t or don’t clearly address these questions should be a significant warning flag, even if an individual can’t follow the science.
Also, don’t mix up skepticism of the magnitude of the role of CO2 with anything remotely resembling being against the environment. In fact i would say just the opposite because many, like me, think the Environment will be more damaged by an unnecessary focus on CO2, primarily because economies will be damaged and poor people don’t have much incentive to prevent degradation of the environment.
Will Small (12:16:18) :
instead, here in the comments, I see a lot of folks clinging tightly to their dogma afraid of facts and science.
Will, I have been following the discussions on this site for a while. I believe that most of the posters are keenly interested in the facts and science. It is refreshing to see so many people try and dig up the actual data, algorithms for computing models, and theories of climatologists. On other climate sites, I have found that people recite much dogma and echo each other without using logic and critical reasoning to see the facts and science.
On this site, your opinion will be evaluated and respected if you offer evidence to support your claims.
Will Small,
I must say that you are in a total state of denial about the seriousness of the issue. TWC was helping to communicate propaganda.
Here in the comments, I see you clinging tightly to the dogma of climate change, afraid of facts and science.
It’s very sad and I feel very sorry for you. You’re children will hate your denial of reality someday.
Mike Bryant
Will Small:
I must say that many of the folks here are in a total state of denial about the seriousness of the issue. TWC was helping to communicate science.
That is simply hilarious, Will.
By your way of thinking, then, Al Gore was “helping to communicate science” with his sci-fi flick Alarmist Hype, Propaganda and Convenient Lies?
I see a lot of folks clinging tightly to their dogma afraid of facts and science.
Looked in a mirror lately? Look closely.
It’s very sad and I feel very sorry for you. You’re children will hate your denial someday.
What is sad, Will, is seeing people like you who are so deluded about AGW, and who can’t or won’t be bothered thinking for themselves. Your children will despise your lack of fortitude, and lack of judgement and common sense for going along with, and helping perpetrate a fraud the likes of which the world has never seen, and which will cost untold billions of dollars spent needlessly and foolishly on a non-problem.
We shouldn’t pick on Will.
I do think he’s wrong.
I would not object to the measures I suspect he would like to see enacted except that they will come at huge continuing expense and great cost in human life. And I don’t think they would help much at all, even if Will is right about the problem.
I also doubt–very–much that the problem is immediate or that we are anywhere near a “tipping point”.
If there is a serious problem, carbon caps are not going to solve it. We will have to find another solution entirely. (Probably much cheaper and more effective than cutting carbon.)
First, we need to learn more. We know an awful lot more about climate than we did five years ago and a huge amount more than we did back in 1988 when the problem hit the political scene. We have certainly found that the historical records are badly if not fatally flawed and that the “hockey stick’ is simply out-and-out incorrect.
What we need to find out is whether CO2 positive feedback loop theory is correct or incorrect. Recent evidence indicates it is incorrect, but we won’t be sure for a few years yet . Research and data ongoing. If it turns out to be incorrect, carbon caps are a de facto crime against humanity, and a very deadly one.
Finding out what is really going on and addressing the problem affordably and effectively is the only thing the next generation will thank us for. (Or not. They might be as ungrateful to their fathers as our generation was, the little wretches!)
CNN HLN tonight had a clip on the slow growth of artic ice causing issues for the polar bears. Stated slow re-growth of ice was a big part of the problem.
Many of the people who are quick to point to the false intelligence that was used to support the invasion of Iraq do not allow for the strong probability that we have false climate intelligence to support measures that will surely cripple the world economy, especially the developing countries. In the first instance mainstream intelligence assessments from many countries agreed that Iraq was a major threat due to WMDs, funding of terrorist groups, etc. In this instance we have the a different international “mainstream” pitching us to buy into extreme action. The fortune lost will be much larger and the loss of life larger, though more hidden. And we will discover later that there was no reason for it.
On the youtube video, Freeman Dyson, says that if we want to lower CO2, it is a trivial matter that can be done with the proper plantings and irrigation. Perhaps that is an approach that everyone could agree on.
Freeman Dyson on youtube explains how easily CO2 could be controlled especially in the last thirty seconds or so of this video:
evanjones (15:30:33) :
‘Finding out what is really going on and addressing the problem affordably and effectively is the only thing the next generation will thank us for. (Or not. They might be as ungrateful to their fathers as our generation was, the little wretches!)’
The older I get the more grateful I am of my father. He is now 90.
re: contact congress button. I am all for that unless it becomes a red vs blue, right vs wrong stereotype of what kind of person believes this or that side of the debate. Or worse, a broadside against the fact that the dems are in control of congress. That kind of message will be dismissed out of hand for what it is and we will be ignored.
Britain Braced For Heavy Snowfall
A cold snap in late November would traditionally herald the start of winter proper but this year has already proved an exception with snow covering parts of the south east of England, including London in late October.
The freak snowfall on the night of October 28 has already been described by forecasters as the most outstanding example of early snowfall in the South East since 1880 and has seen some bookmakers slashing their odds on a white Christmas.
Bookmakers William Hill have reported record betting levels already and have cut the odds on snow falling on Christmas Day in London from 8/1 to 6/1 and Glasgow is now as short as 7/2.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Snow-Predicted-As-Arctic-Weather-Front-Covers-Country-Black-Ice-And-Freezing-Rain-Possible/Article/200811415158805?lpos=UK_News_News_Your_Way_Region_1&lid=NewsYourWay_ARTICLE_15158805_Snow_Predicted_As_Arctic_Weather_Front_Covers_Country%2C_Black_Ice_And_Freezing_Rain_Possible
Pamela, re your comment about a Contact-Congress button. Someone at WUWT would prepare the correspondence to be sent to the congresspersons. Each registered member of WUWT would receive an “action alert” email, including a button to access the contact-congress facility. The WUWT member could modify the correspondence with a limited number of new characters. The facility would allow the correspondence to be delivered by fax or email, at the user’s choice, to the appropriate congressperson(s) based on the registered user’s zip code. It would take $money to set up. It may be too expensive and too political for WUWT. What climate website would be appropriate for that?
Tom Turner (18:23:54) :
I hate me-too posts and postcard drives. OTOH, I send my congress critter a letter and get the same form answer back, so maybe the me-toos have the right idea.
There a staff at WUWT that has time to “prepare the correspondence”? That’s probably news to Anthony.
REPLY: I didn’t get that memo, probably got lost in the inter-office mail system – Anthony
With the long term bitter cold being forecast by NCEP, will NOAA continue clinging to their global warming dogma, or will they start advising the country to take necessary action to protect the energy supplies this winter?
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp1.html
We have arrived at a tipping point of sorts, where NOAA’s press department needs to decide if they are going to serve the function they are chartered with, or go down in flames. Same for the UK Met Office. Are they so deeply entrenched in their dogma that they can no longer see what is going on outside their windows?
Has it been confirmed that Cullen was culled? If so, I’ll start watching TWC again.
The older I get the more grateful I am of my father. He is now 90.
What that generation built was awesome. (Even more and better than the one immediately preceding it.) Whatever horizons we conquer it will be because we stood on the shoulders of those giants.
Ric Werme (19:13:44) :
I’m merely bringing up the concept of a climare-oriented contact congress facility to make good use of the information at WUWT. The facility may or may not be appropriate for WUWT, but would work elsewhere, or may already be in place, in which case, I’d like to know which website has it. Pamela Gray (17:04:30) wrote, “re: contact congress button. I am all for that unless ….” Even though you wrote that you don’t like “me-too” posts, this kind of communication with congress was extremely effective in preventing passage of the “Dream Act” three (3) times last year. It is used at both Numbers USA and Calif. for Population Stabilization. There is a wealth of good information at WUWT against AGW, and WUWT users would appreciate a convenient tool for putting that information to effective use vis-a-vis congress. I am not informed how large a staff runs WUWT. Is it just Anthony?
Thank God. I wonder when the rest of them will figure out that these channels are invited into your living room, and that nobody invites a deaf-to-reason ideologue into their home more than once.
Nov. 22 was the earliest sub-freezing day at Central Park since November of 1989. Newark Airport topped out at 34, which would be three degrees below normal for the middle of January. This is a remarkable turnaround, since the first two weeks of November, culminating in last Saturday’s max of 70, averaged 5+ degrees above normal. Virtually all of that deviation has been wiped out in six days!
A modest ‘reprieve’ to a few degrees below normal next week, and then the barn doors with a northern exposure open wide for the first half of December.