ABC led the way in connecting coverage of extreme weather in western U.S. to the climate crisis. Five of the network's 18 segments -- 28% -- on the heat wave or drought mentioned climate change. On June 14, ABC meteorologist Ginger Zee linked the heat wave to climate change in two segments on Good Morning America. On the June 15 edition, she linked the megadrought in the West to climate change, noting that “half of the megadrought can be attributed to warming temperatures.” One climate mention came during a heat wave segment on the June 16 edition of Good Morning America, and one in the context of the heat wave on the June 17 edition of World News Tonight to round out ABC’s five climate mentions.
ABC has traditionally lagged behind its corporate broadcast network counterparts in airing climate coverage, making its reporting on the extreme weather in the West that much more notable.
CBS aired 17 segments on the Western extreme weather as well, with four of them -- 24% -- mentioning climate change. Three of these mentions came from CBS meteorologist and climate specialist Jeff Berardelli on the June 17, 18, and 19 editions of CBS This Morning. During Berardelli’s weather report on June 17, he connected both the heat wave and the drought to climate change, stating, “Combined heat and drought is five times more likely now than it was due to human-caused climate change.” The lone climate mention on CBS Evening News came in the context of heat wave reporting of the June 17 edition.
NBC aired 14 segments on the western extreme weather, and three of them -- 21% -- mentioned climate change. A notable example comes from the June 17 edition of Today, which featured climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, who stated, “As climate changes, as the world warms, we’re seeing that our summer extreme heatwaves are getting more frequent, stronger, more intense, and more deadly.” Climate mentions also occurred on the June 17 edition of NBC Nightly News and the June 20 edition of Sunday Today.
PBS NewsHour aired three segments on the western extreme weather, with two of them mentioning climate change. On the June 14 edition, climate change’s impact on the Western megadrought was mentioned during a story on the G7 nations’ climate pledges. There was also a climate mention in reporting on the heat wave and megadrought on the June 18 edition, with correspondent John Yang stating, “Scientists say climate change has increased the severity of the heat wave and drought. That’s had a devastating impact on agriculture."
Corporate broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- have historically done a poor job of connecting climate change to extreme heat events. During the summer of 2018, these networks aired 127 segments on a massive heat wave but mentioned climate change only once. In 2019, while CBS did a good job of linking climate change to a July heat wave in its reporting, ABC mentioned climate change only once, and NBC didn’t mention it at all. And last year, the networks failed to do a good job at linking climate change to two separate heat wave events. In June 2020, NBC’s Today was the only corporate broadcast news show to even mention the sweltering hot Arctic temperatures. (PBS, which has traditionally outpaced its nightly news counterparts in climate coverage, was the only network to mention climate change in its Arctic heat reporting.) Later, in July 2020, ABC, CBS, and NBC aired 40 segments on a record-breaking intense heat, and none of them mentioned climate change.
Despite this encouraging improvement in climate reporting on broadcast TV news during one of the first major extreme weather events of 2021, there were still segments that characterized the extreme weather as climate change without explicitly making the link. One example of this missed opportunity comes from the June 18 edition of Today; the segment contained the following language:
