"One morning Chris Gloninger opened his emails to find a message from a viewer asking for his home address, saying they wanted to give him a welcome he would remember. "My heart raced and I felt paralyzed," remembers Gloninger, who at the time was presenting the weather on a TV station in Des Moines, in the midwestern US state of Iowa."
"The email referenced the case of a man who had been arrested for attempted murder of supreme court associate Brett Kavanaugh, after showing up at his house with a gun and zip ties. It was the final straw after a string of harassment since taking the job as chief meteorologist. He called the police and rushed to a hotel with his wife."
Television meteorologists are increasingly targeted with online harassment and threats connected to climate misinformation and politicization. A chief meteorologist in Des Moines received death threats and a viewer's request for his home address after emphasizing climate change on air. Attempts to frame climate science as a political agenda have led to sustained, escalating abuse, forcing forecasters to involve police and temporarily relocate. Forecasters who tailor climate coverage to local audiences still face pushback, including references to violent incidents and explicit threats. Rising conspiracies and misinformation amplify hostility toward visible communicators of climate science, creating safety risks and chilling professional communication.
Read at www.dw.com
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