Melanie Morgan

(Originally printed in 2007, foreshadowing a problem that still exists today.)

This week Americans observed a national day of mourning (I’m speaking not of  President Ford’s funeral, but rather the day that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi  seized power in Congress).

The Weather Channel debuted in 1982 and went on to earn a reputation as a  well-known and respected cable network.  The explosive success of the cable  channel prompted the publication of a book marking the network’s 20th  anniversary.  That success has been based on the fact that weather forecasts are  sought after by a vast number of Americans on a near-daily basis.

What had been nice about The Weather Channel is that through most of its  history it stayed clear of political propaganda and focused on delivering  weather forecasts to the nation, supplemented with riveting live reports from  the front lines of hurricanes, winter blizzards and springtime floods.

But no more. The Weather Channel is now engaged in a con job on the American  people, attempting to scare the public that their actions are destroying the  planet by creating a global warming crisis.

The move away from scientific forecasting of the weather to sensationalized  leftist political advocacy is in part due to the influence of Wonya Lucas,  executive vice president and general manager of The Weather Channel  Networks.

Lucas admitted in a recent interview with Media Village that the  reprogramming of The Weather Channel was influenced by her tenure at CNN when  that network shifted from presenting straight news to personality-driven  programming.

Lucas decided that what was good for CNN was good for The Weather Channel,  and the objectivity and respectability of the network has now been thrown out  the window.  It doesn’t matter that CNN’s turn to the left has caused their  ratings to plummet; The Weather Channel’s embraced its model.

Media Village reported that the move by The Weather Channel “is intended to  establish a broader perspective on the weather category and, says Lucas, to move  the brand from functional to emotional.”

Emotional weather forecasting?

The Weather Channel is launching a new website and broadband channel  dedicated solely to global warming called “One Degree” and has a weekly program  called “The Climate Code,” devoted almost entirely to liberal advocacy on  climate matters.

The network is running advertisements showcasing scared and confused  Americans, including children and senior citizens, wondering about the coming  apocalypse caused by global warming.  (You  can view the ad for yourself here.)

The chief martyr for the new “emotional” approach to broadcasting at The  Weather Channel is Dr. Heidi Cullen, who serves as the network’s cheerleader for  global warming hysteria.  Cullen’s supposed expertise on climatology includes,  among other things, earning a bachelor’s degree in Near Eastern religions and  history from Juniata College.  One must indeed have to believe in the mystical  to accept anything Ms. Cullen has to say about climatology.

Writing for the One Degree blog, Ms. Cullen recently threw a hissy fit that  some meteorologists are openly questioning the conclusions drawn by the  Greenpeace crowd about the nature, extent, causes and even existence of global  warming.

Cullen’s diatribe, titled “Junk  Controversy Not Junk Science,” called on the American Meteorological Society  to start requiring all meteorologists to toe the line on liberal interpretation  of global warming, or else lose the organization’s certification.

George Orwell’s 1984 couldn’t have concocted a better form of thought  control.

The global warming crowd, led by arrogant hustlers such as Heidi Cullen at  The Weather Channel, has set up a no-lose situation for themselves.

Climatology is by definition the study of long-term climate trends, and it  will indeed be many decades or longer before any definitive conclusions about  even the existence of global warming – let alone its causes – can be determined  to be true or false. This means that Cullen and her cohorts can’t be held  accountable for their erroneous beliefs.

Even still, we can see how foolish it is to allow people like Heidi Cullen to  influence decision-makers to impose further restrictions and regulations on the  actions of human beings.  Global warming scaremongers jumped on the devastation  of Hurricane Katrina and the busy 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and went on to  predict that 2006 would be a potentially devastating year of tropical cyclones  in the Atlantic Ocean.

As it was, not one single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

If forecasters can’t reliably tell us what will happen in two to three months  from now, why would anyone trust that they know what will happen with the  weather in 50 or 100 years from now and let them tell us how to live our lives  accordingly?

This is all about Big Brother do-gooders trying to control how you live your  life, and stripping away the freedoms and liberties of people to live their  lives as they see fit, engage in commerce and raise their families.

There’s a con job going on at The Weather Channel, and it’s time that viewers  let the network know it’s time to stop the liberal politicization of weather  reporting.

You can contact The Weather Channel’s vice president of public relations,  Kathy Lane, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2007/01/39560/#K2wsk6lbjqQh5aFb.99