The Skeptic

Weekend Weatherman David Aldrich

by Doron Taussig

Photo By: Michael T. Regan (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

David Aldrich, the weekend weatherman at Fox 29, considers himself a green guy. He recycles, uses nontoxic cleaning products in his house and his next car will probably be a hybrid. But when it comes to the biggest, most controversial environmental issue of our time, Aldrich isn't signing on.

This weatherman is a self-proclaimed "Global Warming Skeptic."

On the blog he maintains for Fox29's Web site, Aldrich liberally employs varying font colors, sizes and styles to cast doubt on the biggest forecast of them all.

"After the 13th COLDEST February in Philadelphia and the coldest since 1979, many are scratching their heads on what to believe when it comes to global warming," he wrote. "My goal is NOT to convince or persuade you one way or the other � but rather, to expose you to the multiple sides of this argument. And yes, there are MULTIPLE sides."

We were curious to hear Aldrich's side. After all, our nonscientific understanding had been that there was incontrovertible evidence of the Earth getting warmer and a considerable body of evidence that humanity was responsible for the trend. That's what the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says, anyway.

Aldrich looks a lot like someone you might expect to see on TV: a traditionally handsome man with a boyish haircut. When we sat down with him at Fox's studios, he acted like someone on TV, too. He was full of smiles, and very friendly.

"I totally believe that we are in a warm phase," he began. "There's no doubt the Earth is warmer."

But?

"There's a different side to what is causing climate change. I think too much emphasis has been put on CO2. I do not believe CO2 is a pollutant. I'm made of CO2, you're made of CO2 ... the ocean is a reservoir of CO2."

Aldrich says he believes the Earth is warming because of natural cycles of the sun and the ocean.

The "cycles" explanation is a common one among global warming skeptics, says Nathan Wilcox of Penn Environment, a local advocacy group. The trouble with Aldrich's thinking, he says, is that CO2 is being stored in the wrong place.

"If CO2 is stored in the ocean � well, that's the point. It's stored in the ocean, not in the atmosphere," Wilcox says. It's the high level of carbon in the atmosphere that makes this warm cycle particularly worrisome. (Aldrich thinks the carbon is in the atmosphere because of the heat.)

People are naturally inclined to want to hear about global warming from their weatherman. "It's one of the hottest items," says Steve Harned, executive director of the National Weather Association. But the NWA doesn't have an official position on the matter. Weathermen and women are "geared more toward short-term forecasting," Harned says. Global warming is about the change in climate, not weather (hence the more formal label "climate change").

Aldrich acknowledges this. "I'm not a climatologist," he says several times during our discussion, by way of a disclaimer.

But why, then, is he evangelizing about global warming? It's not the company line � Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox, has publicly declared his concern about the problem.

"I don't want to be afraid to be myself," Aldrich says.

And Aldrich, himself, is a "weather geek." Whether it's promoting a British movie called The Global Warming Swindle or telling people to watch Al Gore's movie, he just wants to be talking about the weather � and he might as well share his opinion.

Speaking of which, Aldrich says, he's not sure of his global warming convictions. "If we move past five or 10 years and we're still warming," he says, then he'll accept that there's a man-made problem. Until then? "Global warming may keep people up at night. I don't worry about that. I get about three minutes and a half to present the weather. I've got to give people the conditions, [the forecast] and what to wear."