Climate Change
Chris Gloninger said he was hired to talk about global warming in his forecasts. That’s when things heated up.
Chris Gloninger, a former meteorologist with KCCI in Des Moines. “They told me ‘we’d prefer you not to use ‘climate change’, it’s too polarized’,” Mr. Gloninger said.Credit…Cassandra Klos for The New York Times
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In 2021, Chris Gloninger, a television weatherman in Boston with a passion for climate science, was approached with an intriguing prospect. Would he consider a job as chief meteorologist at a television station in Des Moines?
It was a smaller market, and talk of global warming would be challenging in a politically conservative state. But research from 2020 showed that most Iowans were interested in news about climate change, and the state was a leader in wind energy. Mr. Gloninger’s weather forecasts could be a breakthrough.
An interview with the station’s news director, Allison Smith, clinched it. The station, KCCI, wanted to amp up climate coverage, Mr. Gloninger said he was told, not least because agriculture was so important in the state.
In announcing Mr. Gloninger’s hiring to the newsroom, Ms. Smith highlighted his extensive climate coverage. Another meteorologist who was considered for the same job, Matt Serwe, said that in his interview with KCCI, coverage of global warming was underscored. “My big takeaway was that there’s going to be a lot of climate involved,” said Mr. Serwe, now a meteorologist at KSTP in St. Paul, Minn.
In the spring of 2021, Mr. Gloninger and his wife sold their house in Boston and relocated to a graceful ranch house on the outskirts of Des Moines.
For some in Iowa, news that KCCI had hired a chief meteorologist to talk about climate science seemed heaven sent. Channing Dutton, a longtime climate activist and personal injury lawyer in Des Moines, likened Mr. Gloninger’s arrival to “a thunderclap among the climate community.”
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