Instead of providing a forecast during the 7:30 a.m. ET half hour of NBC’s Today show on Friday, weatherman Al Roker decided to launch into a lecture on climate change. Citing the American Meteorological Society’s annual State of the Climate report, Roker warned viewers that “we’ve seen a lot of climate change going on.”
The longtime TV meteorologist hyped findings in the newly-released research study, which examined the global climate in 2017:
...we’ve had record-high amounts of carbon dioxide concentration....Carbon dioxide growth at 400% since the 1960s....Sea level rise, it’s the highest on record for global sea level rise....A warming planet. It’s the warmest non-El Nino year on record, the third warmest year overall....And of course, that leads to melting sea ice.
Roker concluded: “All told, it just shows that we’re seeing more climate change continuing at a rapid pace.”
This was not the first time Roker used a weather report to sound the climate change alarm. In August of 2016, he got on his soapbox to predict increasing summer temperatures in the decades to come. In November of 2017, while reporting on flooding in Texas in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, Roker feared: “...it could be once every five and a half years you could have a Harvey-like Texas event.”
In 2013, Roker was appalled by polling that found 37 percent of respondents thought “global warming is a hoax.” He blasted skeptics: “Okay, two words: Superstorm Sandy!”
Before Roker’s Friday segment, NBC’s climate change activism was already on full display Thursday, when Chief Environmental Affairs Correspondent Anne Thompson promised an “environmental civil war” over President Trump’s plan to rollback Obama-era fuel economy standards.
Here is a full transcript of Roker’s August 3 report on the Today show:
7:37 AM ET
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Let’s head over to Al, the man of the morning with all this weather, Hi.
AL ROKER: Hey, good morning, guys. And we’ve seen a lot of climate change going on, and of course, the American Meteorological Society issues a State of the Climate report every year. 2017, we’ve had record-high amounts of carbon dioxide concentration, highest levels in the ice core samples that they take that date back 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide growth at 400% since the 1960s.
Sea level rise, it’s the highest on record for global sea level rise, rising at 1.2 inches per decade, which, of course, causes flooding along the coast.
A warming planet. It’s the warmest non-El Nino year on record, the third warmest year overall. In fact, the last four years have been the warmest on record.
And of course, that leads to melting sea ice. Arctic sea ice is at a maximum record low and the lowest daily value on record. All told, it just shows that we're seeing more climate change continuing at a rapid pace.
That’s what’s going on around the country, here’s what’s happening in your neck of the woods.
