Over the past couple of days, morning shows on both CNN and MSNBC have hyped alarmist predictions made by a United Nations panel about how global warming will affect the world over the next 100 years.
On CNN's New Day, co-host Alisyn Camerota asked climate correspondent Bill Weir, "How do you get out of bed in the morning?" after he finished detailing the "dire" predictions.
And on MSNBC, First Look co-host Yasmin Vossoughian detailed the "sweeping and severe consequences of climate change" predicted by the report, leading co-host Ayman Mohyeldin and meteorologist Bill Karins to lament that politicians have not acted yet on such predictions.
On Thursday morning, vossoughian began reading an item on the subject:
YASMIN VOSSOUGHIAN: A sobering new report from the United Nations is warning of the sweeping and severe consequences of climate change. The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that rising temperatures are already having a major impact on oceans and ice-filled regions of the world that make up 80 percent of the Earth, adding, "Future damage from rising seas and melting glaciers is now all but certain."
She then added:
The report says that the warming climate is already killing coral reefs, fueling monster storms and making deadly marine heat waves and record losses of sea ice even worse. The panel says that, given current emissions levels, a number of serious effects are essentially unavoidable, including 100-year floods that will become common in some cities and small island nations, including Los Angeles, by the year 2050.
After Mohyeldin reacted, "Scary thought," he and Karins then went back and forth:
BILL KARINS, MSNBC METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, and we're going to keep getting those reports, and they're never going to get any more, you know, better until something happens. Scientists just keep giving us the info, and it's just a matter of time until --
MOHYELDIN: Hopefully, the politicians will start listening to the scientists.
KARINS: I'm glad you guys keep updating those stories.
On Wednesday's New Day on CNN, Weir appeared at 7:42 a.m. Eastern to discuss the report. With the words "Climate Crisis" on screen in giant letters, Camerota set up the segment: "A U.N. panel of more than 100 scientists just released a major climate change report focusing on the ice-covered parts of Earth and our oceans. Its findings are dire unless action is taken now."
After Weir listed some of the expected harmful effects on the environment, he then got to the issue of how rising sea levels might harm the human population:
BILL WEIR: And then, in the end, the triple whammy, sea level rise. It is accelerating twice as fast as the 20th century right now. This is that glacier I showed you up in Alaska. The land-based glaciers in Alaska are contributing to sea level rise way more than any other region. And so places like Miami, Florida, which is just a foot above sea level rise, they're looking at these numbers that, even if we all switched to skateboards tomorrow, they're looking at about a foot to two foot of sea level rise at the very minimum.
He then concluded:
We're more on path now without changing to four to five to maybe six feet of sea level rise by 2100, and that means storms that would happen once a century will happen every year. So it's not a matter of waves lapping up onto your front step if you live on the coast, it's a matter of not having time to rebuild because of the storms that just keep coming.
Camerota fretted: "I don't know how you get out of bed in the morning, Bill -- Bill Weir. I really don't. I mean, I know that there are answers out there, and you often address those. That's the thing -- action that happens now will save countless lives down the road."
