Stay perky
So – John – I want us to be happy about the weather and everything is – I don’t know whether something has happened to meteorologists to make you all a little bit fatalistic and and [giggle[ harbingers of doom.
Gee I can’t imagine what it might be.
Is it really so difficult to grasp the difference between rare and common?
I felt so bad for the meteorologist. “Hundreds if not thousands of excess deaths” … “Haven’t we always had hot weather?” He’s got bad news, and they are getting on his case for daring to have bad news. All these climate problems, and the newscaster wonders, not what has happened to the weather, but what has happened to the meteorologists.
Neil Postman wrote about the “Haha stay perky” media imperative decades ago, in a book titled Amusing Ourselves to Death. This one is a stunningly literal example.
For added difficulty, these extra people needing emergency treatment because the heat has exacerbated their pre-existing illness (or they turned out not to be able to handle hiking in the glorious sunshine after all) are not going to get any help because ambulances are parked up outside A&E for entire shifts just waiting to hand over a single patient instead of actually responding to callouts.
WaPo has an article about this incident, with followup.
A U.K. meteorologist warned of deadly heat. He was told to cheer up.