The Weather Channel's Heidi Cullen says one of the steps to fight global warming is using images to affect people's outlook.
At the "Covering a Changing Climate: The Media Challenge" forum held at Harvard University in Boston, Mass. on April 30, Cullen suggested using Weather.com and Google Earth to add visual elements to promote the cause.
"[I] split my time between The Weather Channel and this think tank in Princeton and one of the things we've been trying to do is work with Google Earth essentially. And for me, coming from The Weather Channel, the most powerful tool that exists is Weather.com and you type in your zip code and you get a forecast out five days."
TWC's Weather.com is one of the most visited Web sites on the Internet. It frequently ranks in the top five of the "News and Media Category Weekly Report" put out by Hitwise, a firm that monitors Web traffic.
An example Cullen used was one of the models she had observed which showed the European heat wave of 2003 becoming more of a common occurrence.
"[I]f you run that model out, in time, and by the year 2050, the summer of 2003 will be happening every other year. And, by the end of the century, 2003 will be a relatively cool summer. And that's what people need to see and say, ‘Oh sh*@! That's bad.'"
