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Pete Delkus on Climate Change: ‘I Still Have a Lot of Questions’

The Channel 8 weatherman is skeptical of the scientific consensus on global warming.
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When I talked to Pete Delkus a few weeks ago, he declined to go on the record with his views on climate change, unwilling to wade into such a “public quagmire.” Channel 8’s chief meteorologist has since changed his mind, addressing the subject in a Facebook Live video Friday morning.

In the video, which had about 23,000 views by early Friday afternoon, Delkus says he was spurred at least in part by the news this week that President Trump will pull the U.S. from the Paris climate accord. He also says he didn’t want his comments to be “abbreviated” in D Magazine. While he wasn’t worried that he would be misquoted or unfairly edited, he “did want to make sure you could have the full context as to what my opinion is.”

At the risk of robbing the man of his context, here’s the most relevant quote as it pertains to Delkus’ opinion on climate change:

“I believe man is having some impacts on our climate. How much? I don’t know. And I don’t believe we have a full understanding of that.”

While pointedly avoiding words like “skeptic,” the meteorologist repeats a familiar refrain used by climate change doubters: “Our climate has always changed and always will.” Delkus decries what he calls the politicization of the issue, and says “I’m not going to tell you that I believe or not believe in whatever the Republicans or the Democrats” want to talk about. He questions the reliability of some of the data supporting the scientific consensus that recent global warming is driven primarily by human activity. He says how weary he is of opinionated cable news, and of opinions in general.

I, too, would like to see more opinions informed by facts. If only we could agree on those. Delkus does say we all need to be good stewards of the earth, an opinion I find it hard to disagree with.

The full video is embedded below. The climate change talk starts with about 24 minutes left on the clock. Watch the whole thing for this weekend’s weather forecast (occasionally wet and stormy, nothing severe), as well as Delkus’ thoughts on D Magazine (fantastic), Kathy Griffin (not funny), and Kevin Durant (good at basketball).

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