Weather presenter heats up over climate denier rhetoric

  • 07/12/2016
(The Weather Channel)
(The Weather Channel)

The battle over climate change is heating up after far-right website Breitbart used a video by the Weather Channel to support one of its articles.

The Breitbart report claimed global temperatures had plummeted in recent months - something experts were deliberately ignoring.

To back up its point it used a video by the Weather Channel, which has now fired back.

Meteorologist Kait Parker said Breitbart had permission to use the video because of a content-sharing agreement, but "there should be no assumption that The Weather Company endorses the article associated with it".

Ms Parker tore apart the Breitbart article in a two-minute video with a bright smile, debunking climate "myths" the far-right site addressed.

"Next time you're thinking about publishing a cherry-picked article, trying consulting a scientist first," she says.

An accompanied post on the Weather Company's website rejected Breitbart's claims the past three years "may eventually come to be seen as the final death rattle of the global warming scare".

"In fact, thousands of researchers and scientific societies are in agreement that greenhouse gases produced by human activity are warming the planet's climate and will keep doing so," the Weather Company said.

Breitbart's article was promoted by the US House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology's Twitter account, which often shares the far-right site's stories, despite its lack of evidence.

Ms Parker said people needed to read beyond the headlines in order to get real information, tweeting: "This is how fake news is spread."

At the end of its post the Weather Company encouraged Breitbart to reach out for some help the next time it tried to write a climate change article.

"We're here for you. I'm sure we both agree this topic is too important to get wrong."

Newshub.