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"With extreme drought and unusual warmth in the west, and frigid conditions and snowstorms in the east, the split personality of U.S. winter in recent months accomplished a rare feat, spurring all three major television network\u2019s Sunday news shows to finally address climate change. \nConsidering that ratings leader, NBC\u2019s Meet the Press, did not offer any \u201Csubstantial mention\u201D of climate change in all of 2013, according to media watchdog group Media Matters for America, the segments that led the top of the broadcasts were unusual.\nSee also: Why the Ice Storm in the South Is Such a Big Deal\nTwo of the networks demonstrated how a politically fraught scientific subject can be responsibly dealt with by shows that typically only feature political commentary. However, Meet the Press did not fare so well. In fact, according to many climate scientists and activists, the show provided an example of how not to cover global warming on television.\nMeet the Press featured a debate between Bill Nye \"the Science Guy,\" a bow-tie wearing science educator who has made a side career out of debating high-profile climate skeptics, and Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who questions the existence of manmade global warming. But instead of it being a debate between Nye and Blackburn, the segment turned into a debate between host David Gregory and Blackburn, as he pushed her to move beyond statements of scientific doubt, and discuss climate policy.\n\nCovering global warming as a debate has long been a fatally flawed paradigm, considering that the vast majority of climate scientists agree that manmade climate change is real. The actual debate in the scientific community centers on how damaging climate change will be, to what extent global warming\u2019s fingerprints are already visible on our day-to-day weather extremes, and what can be done about it.\nInstead, Meet the Press debated the very existence of the problem, and when it came to climate policy, Bill Nye is not the guy to discuss cap-and-trade plans or climate taxes.\nIt\u2019s not surprising that the Sunday shows, which typically focus exclusively on politics, might have some hiccups when addressing science, but NBC\u2019s decision to pair Nye versus Blackburn was a head-shaking moment for many.\n\nWhy the hell did NBC decide to have a \"debate\" about #climate change on Meet the Press today? http://t.co/myzivMjBTE\n\u2014 CitizensClimateLobby (@citizensclimate) February 16, 2014\n\n\u00A0\n\nWhen I suggested Meet the Press could use some more climate change coverage, this isn't exactly what I had in mind http://t.co/D9HWHo1T9H\n\u2014 Kate Sheppard (@kate_sheppard) February 15, 2014\n\n\u00A0\nIn contrast, CBS\u2019 Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer included an actual climate scientist \u2014  University of Georgia's Marshall Shepherd \u2014 to discuss the role that global warming may be playing in extreme weather events. And over at ABC, This Week with George Stephanopoulos featured a roundtable discussion on extreme weather that included a mix of politicians and scientists, including Heidi Cullen, chief climatologist at Climate Central, a climate news and research group.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCullen said on This Week with George Stephanopoulos that the extreme weather events this winter are examples of ones that manmade climate change is already worsening, even if an individual event can\u2019t be tied directly to global warming. Her comments were in line with U.S. President Barack Obama's remarks during a tour of drought-stricken California on Friday.\n\u201CSo the kinds of droughts that we've been seeing in Texas, or in California right now, we know that climate change makes them worse,\u201D Cullen said. \u201CIt's actually very similar to cigarette smoking and lung cancer, it increases the likelihood of that risk. We've already looked at the Texas drought in 2011. We know that climate change made that drought 20 times more likely.\u201D\nEditor's Note: Andrew Freedman was previously a senior science writer for Climate Central\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.\n      window._msla=window.loadScriptAsync||function(src,id){if(document.getElementById(id))return;var js=document.createElement('script');js.id=id;js.src=src;document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0].parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);};\n_msla(\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\",\"twitter_jssdk\");"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/02/16/meet-the-press-global-warming-debate/>