Climate and the Weather

So I've been wondering... how come when we hear our daily weather forecast, climate change is never, ever mentioned? It would seem that weather and the global climate are pretty intertwined. And yet, are the words "climate change," "global warming," "greenhouse effect," etc. ever spoken during the prime-time weather broadcasts? What about on the radio? I haven't heard any of that. Please let me know if you have, I'd love to know which stations do.

http://www.azcentral.com/weather/wsi_images/CONT_USA1_Heat_Index.SGI.gif
When will this picture start meaning something more than just random numbers?

Now, I did some wondering and some thinking, and I think I know why you don't hear any of that during the weather broadcasts. I have come up with two reasons:

1) We humans like to think of the weather as some force that is out of our control, something totally detached from our human problems. We don't really want to hear that the storms, droughts, and heat waves are our fault. That would mean that we have some sort of responsibility, and who wants that?

2) Global warming has become a political issue. It shouldn't be one, but it is. There are still those people who think that the concept of global warming is a liberal hoax created to scare us all into paying more taxes. Because clearly our top scientists are in on the scheme.... right..... Anyway, no one wants the weather to become a political thing. Not the viewers/listeners/readers, nor the Weather Channel, nor the television stations.

So the solution has been to just ignore climate change. Reporters tell us about hurricanes, about record high temperatures, about unusually low snowfall, and they leave it at that. Think about how many more people would care about curbing climate change if they could connect it to their daily lives, not just pairing it with faraway polar bears? When the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, people came together with compassion and remarkable strength to help the victims. It would be even more remarkable if people could make the connection between weather and climate, and come together with that powerful strength to save our planet and ourselves.

So, just a thought- meteorologists, TV reporters, radio hosts, writers, etc. : stop worrying about politics and make the connection between the daily weather forecast and the climate crisis!