On Monday’s Varney and Company, chief meteorologist Janice Dean attacked George Clooney for saying that climate change is real and is to blame for the super typhoon in the Philippines.
Varney played a clip of Clooney calling climate change denial a “stupid argument.” He said, “If you have 99% of doctors who tell you you are sick and 1% that says, ‘Ah, you’re fine, you probably want to hang out with, check it up for the 99.”
Varney asked “Is there a direct link between climate change, global warming, and this typhoon that just hit the Philippines?”
Dean, in an angry voice, said, “No, it’s irresponsible to blame this typhoon due to global warming or climate change, and the last time I checked, Stuart, I don’t think George Clooney has a degree in atmospheric science, and I don’t believe the AMS, the American Meteorological Society, has given him a seal of approval, so I think it’s irresponsible of him to open his mouth without being educated. It’s very irresponsible to name one storm, which by the way, we are saying it’s one of the strongest typhoons in history, but we still have not gotten the qualified wind speeds. It is based on satellite presentation only. …To blame this one event on climate change, global warming is really quite silly. …For an actor like George Clooney or anyone for that matter to go on and put it on the record that it’s because of climate change, global warming is SO, so foolish.”
Varney sounded delighted as he said, “Thank you! Janice Dean for that analysis there. That’s good coming from you.”
As Media Matters noted in their write up of this segment:
Dean, who has no educational background in climate science (a field significantly different from weather forecasting), previously promoted the counter-scientific idea that the globe may be cooling based on a single year's data in a FoxNews.com blog. Varney, the host of Fox Business' Varney & Co., has also denied climate change in the past, calling it a "scientific conspiracy," although in 2012 he acknowledged that a study provided "hard evidence" of climate change.
Clearly, Varney chose Dean as his guest in order to provide a voice of denial to add to his own and to make Clooney look bad - not because he cared about scientific integrity.