Climate Change Isn't Real, Weather Channel Founder Says

Weather Channel founder and longtime meteorologist John Coleman has a message he'd like to share about climate change: It's not real. Coleman, who runs a blog dedicated to attempting to prove that widely-accepted climate change is the result of "bad science."

"I'm just a dumb old skeptic," the 82-year-old told My News LA Friday. "A denier, as they call me, who ought to be jailed or put to death. I understand how they feel. But you know something? I know I'm right. So I don't care."

His blog, aimed at "correcting the bad science behind the 'climate change' frenzy," details his efforts. Coleman has been critical of former Vice President Al Gore for his environmental crusade and denounced San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer's new "Climate Action Plan."

"I think he saw money and power and I don't know what else he thought of it," Coleman said. "I can't believe he really [felt he] was going to save the city from some terrible fate."

Coleman is aware that his views might be unpopular, but he's sticking by them.

"San Diego's not going to go underwater. Period," he said. "Not in my lifetime or yours or our kids' lifetime. When the Earth ends in four and a half billion years, it probably still won't have flooded."

Also at issue for Coleman are what he calls "the damn tsunami warning route signs they put up all over the city."

"[They're] about a silly as anything I've ever saw in my life," he said. "The chance of a significant tsunami hitting Southern California is about as great as a flying saucer landing tonight at Lindbergh Field. It's just sheer nonsense."

Coleman's brainchild, the Weather Channel, tends not to agree with him. When President Donald Trump announced in June he'd be pulling the United States out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, the channel made a somewhat tongue-in-cheek political statement on its website. The Weather Channel altered its homepage at the time to feature eight prominent stories with specifically tailored headlines:

"So, What Happens To Earth Now?" "Still Don't Care? Proof You Should" "...And More Proof" "...And Even More Proof" "Or The Imminent Collapse Of A Key Ice Shelf" "Or Antarctica Turning Green" "Or California's Coast Disappearing Into The Sea"

The channel also issued a statement in 2014 after Coleman espoused some of his views on Fox News.

"More than a century's worth of detailed climate observations shows a sharp increase in both carbon dioxide and temperature," the statement said. "These observations, together with computer model simulations and historical climate reconstructions from ice cores, ocean sediments and tree rings all provide strong evidence that the majority of the warming over the past century is a result of human activities. This is also the conclusion drawn, nearly unanimously, by climate scientists."