This famous hurricane-chasing weatherman says people are avoiding the ugly truth on climate change

Discussing the weather is one of the most politically neutral forms of small talk. Or, at least it was. As climate change has changed the frequency and intensity of devastating storms, including Hurricane Helene, which has claimed over 100 lives in the past week, the changes to our planet has also become a politically fraught topic. How did we get here and how can we move past it toward productive action? Meteorologist Glenn "The Hurricane" Schwartz might know something about explaining complex topics of weather and climate to a general audience.

Growing up in eastern Pennsylvania as I did, Schwartz was a TV staple. Sporting colorful bowties and thick eyeglasses, Schwartz's presence in our day-to-day lives seemed as inevitable as the rising sun. During torrential rainstorms and blistering heat waves, while standing knee-deep in snow or amidst a crowd of friendly WCAU (the NBC affiliate for the Philadelphia area), Schwartz was there, smiling and merrily rattling off scientific trivia along with the pertinent weather-related news.

Perhaps most notably, Schwartz earned his nickname "The Hurricane" because of his experience in the 1970s studying the powerful storms at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, later becoming one of The Weather Channel's first "hurricane specialists" in the 1980s. Much like the heroes of the recent blockbuster "Twisters," Schwartz has lived the weather that he reports on — and this explains why he was vocally dismayed when the filmmakers refused to mention climate change in their movie.

Recently retired and speaking with Salon, Schwartz described how the figurative climate about discussing the weather has changed for the worse since his career began. Although Schwartz traditionally avoids discussing politics (and avoided partisan statements in this interview), he nevertheless felt compelled to speak out on behalf of science. That, of course, means talking about global heating and climate change.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you contrast how the public has reacted to the issue of global warming from when you started your career as a meteorologist to where you are today?

There really wasn't much of a public conversation about global warming until I'd say around 2010 or so. I first learned about it with the National Weather Service in the seventies. I saw Hansen's testimony in the eighties, and of course, Al Gore talked about it a lot, but it was not something that really was discussed on TV, nor were we encouraged or discouraged to talk about it. It was just not a big subject of interest. 

When did that change?

At least in my part of the country, the winter of 2009 and 2010 was so extreme that it got people thinking that something was wrong. They didn't necessarily know what it was. [They believed] it wasn't related to warming — it was something else. But at the same time, there were more studies that were coming out. There are more people, more scientists talking about it, and that really increased during the next decade. It increased a lot. 

That is an interesting observation. I am curious, as somebody who has written "The Philadelphia Area Weather Book," about the history of weather in southeastern Pennsylvania, what observations have you had directly about changes as a result of global warming?

Well, I think the most dramatic change to me is the increase in rainfall, especially during extreme events. I'm not interested as much in averages when it comes to rain or snow, but I'm interested in the extreme events that always have been, and those are the most important ones. Those are the most dangerous ones, and those are the ones that seem to be changing the most over the last couple of decades.

I actually had to adjust my forecasting to some level. When I saw a certain type of storm, I would be predicting more rain than I would have 15 years before, more snow than if the conditions were as they had been 15 years before, because there's just more moisture in the atmosphere. And so if you have the right storm, you're going to get more precipitation. 

You have direct experience encountering extreme weather. Why is it important for the public to contextualize this in terms of climate change?

These are the events that people remember the most. They're the most important ones. They're the most dangerous ones. And it also, it seems to be, and I think a lot of climate scientists agree on it, that the level of extremes has increased more than predicted by climate scientists. The averages are going right along with the predictions, astonishingly accurate over decades. But the extreme weather in the form of floods, hurricane intensification, sea level rise, glacier melting, a lot of those things are happening faster than the predictions certainly early in the IPCC process. It's like each time they come out with a new report, the language gets stronger.

And that's what I've noticed in my writings every time I've written about climate. If I look back at the 15 years that I've been writing about it, my wording is stronger. The level of certainty is higher, and that trend keeps going. And that means that the climate crisis is real. It is continuing, and people don't need to just accept that fact that we need to do some something about it. It needs to be in people's minds that this is a major issue, not just around here, but across the world. And we can see the impacts of this practically every day, on virtually every continent.

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So then the question is, what advice do you have for educating the public about this issue? I grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania, so I'm used to seeing you as a weatherman, but discussing the weather wasn't always politically charged. Now it is. How do you suggest people do this? How can they be effective based on your own experiences? 

It's very difficult in today's world. Instead of more consensus in the public, as there has become more and more consensus in science, there is more of a separation. And it is indeed political in many ways. The difficult thing is that people start with the conclusions that fits their political thought and then work their way backwards so that they will then only trust sources that agree with their political interpretation of the science. 

What do you think of people who deny climate change exists? Do you think there is any way to get through to them, or if not, how do we as a society progress despite their stubbornness? 

It's a very difficult thing. When I am dealing with it individually, I try to show the fact that I am not talking about it or analyzing it through a political agenda, but through the accumulation of scientific information and interpretation over decades. Again, in this part of the country, I would hope that my credibility built up over 27 years on Philadelphia television that people know that I'm not an extremist or alarmist. And so when I do have conversations and when I do give speeches about it, I get very little pushback, and I have gotten very little pushback on social media over the years.

It just may be that people don't want to bother arguing with me, or it doesn't mean that everybody agrees, but again, at least in this part of the country, if you watched somebody for many, many years, you get to evaluate them in some ways and get to see if they're bringing your personal biases to the subject or not.

I think people need to think about their children and grandchildren and their futures. Are they so sure that the 97% to 99% of climate scientists are wrong, that they're willing to risk their children's and grandchildren's future? Is that really worth it? Somebody mentioned recently that you have a car and you're driving, you don't expect to get into an accident, but you know that there is some chance of that. And so having seatbelts and airbags there, just in case. If you have homeowner's insurance, you don't expect your house to catch on fire, but the chance is not zero, so let's take precautions to prevent it from happening.

When I first started and was taught meteorology, [I learned] the consequences of being wrong are different, depending on what you say. If you over-warn your consequence is losing some credibility; if you under-warn, that could lead to lives lost.

The consequences of the deniers being wrong are way worse than the consequences of... there's a difference between being alarmed and being alarmist. So people should be alarmed. You don't need to be alarmist because there are things that can be done to prevent this from getting a whole lot worse.