December 6, 2016

Weather.com meteorologist Kait Parker took a few minutes out of her usual duties to give Breitbart a message: Global warming is real and you shouldn't use Weather.com reports to lie to people.

Global warming is not expected to end anytime soon, despite what Breitbart.com wrote in an article published last week.

Though we would prefer to focus on our usual coverage of weather and climate science, in this case we felt it important to add our two cents — especially because a video clip from weather.com (La Niña in Pacific Affects Weather in New England) was prominently featured at the top of the Breitbart article. Breitbart had the legal right to use this clip as part of a content-sharing agreement with another company, but there should be no assumption that The Weather Company endorses the article associated with it.

The Breitbart article – a prime example of cherry picking, or pulling a single item out of context to build a misleading case – includes this statement: "The last three years may eventually come to be seen as the final death rattle of the global warming scare."

In fact, thousands of researchers and scientific societies are in agreement that greenhouse gases produced by human activity are warming the planet’s climate and will keep doing so.

Along with its presence on the high-profile Breitbart site, the article drew even more attention after a link to it was retweeted by the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

To be clear here, what Breitbart did isn't "fake news." It's just an outright lie, polished up and sent out to people including the ignorant yahoos in the House of Representatives in order to shape an agenda that benefits polluters, miners, and oil companies. (Those are not mutually exclusive by any stretch, by the way.)

Thanks to Parker and Weather.com for standing up and clarifying that.

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