CNN's Chief Climate Correspondent Flew 6,600 Miles to Say We Must Cut Carbon
Bill Weir, CNN's chief climate correspondent, delivered a story to viewers on some scientists' warning that "90% of ice around Antarctica has disappeared in less than a decade." The topic and angle are normal fare for CNN and Don Lemon who hosted the segment, but it's notable that Weir reported on the scientists' warning while in Ushuaia, Argentina near the tip of South America.
"For the second year in a row, the south pole is shrinking, the ice down here is shrinking," Weir reported. "It's very worrying because Antarctica is a continent surrounded by oceans, and that sea ice protects those ice shelves from unlocking all that ice," the climate reporter continued.
"If it dumps into the oceans en masse, [it] would rearrange every city from Miami to Shanghai along the coasts around the world," Weir warned, saying the situation with Antartica's ice "could be a tipping point" leading to "disasters we don't want to have to imagine."
Don Lemon asked what, if anything, can be done to avoid the "tipping point" and "disasters" Weir warned of to which CNN's leading climate correspondent had an answer with a nearly lethal lack of self-awareness.
"It's the same answer as it has been for generations," Weir said. "The faster we can move away from fuels that burn — in the speediest and most equitable way possible — the less horrible this gets that's the only way right now," he added.
"Not only stopping it at the source," Weir continued, "but pulling carbon out of the sea and sky — carbon removal is going to be the biggest industry you've never heard of," Weir said.
How interesting.
A quick check of the maps shows that Ushuaia is roughly 6,600 miles away from CNN's studios in Manhattan — a distance that Weir didn't traverse on foot or by other "green" means.
Instead, as it turns out, he — likely along with some production staff — flew from New York to Tierra del Fuego (also known as "the end of the world") according to a post on Weir's Instagram account.
Weir's photo shows an Aerolineas Argentinas plane at the JFK airport, which, according to a review of Google Flight data, would have put him on a flight to Buenos Aires' Ezeiza International Airport before continuing on to Ushuaia.
According to Google's estimates, such a trip would have made Weir responsible for 800 kilograms of CO2 emissions each way, plus a similar amount for each additional CNN staffer who accompanied Weir.
So when it comes to carbon that needs to be taken out of the sky, as Weir suggested was a way to stave off disasters, he is responsible for what seems to be an entirely unnecessary series of flights. Why couldn't Weir report the scientists' warnings about Antarctic ice from CNN's studios in New York? Surely there are stock photos and file footage of Antartica and Argentina that could have played and set the scene. But of course, CNN and Weir didn't keep things local and more environmentally friendly.
Much like John Kerry, Pete Buttigieg, and a host of other climate hypocrites, they travel great distances while spewing supposedly planet-altering emissions in order to warn the rest of us we need to cut back or Miami will be underwater.
This latest reporting trip to far-flung Tierra del Fuego also is not Weir's first contradictory climate-focused trip. According to his CNN biography, his Discovery+ show "The Wonder List with Bill Weir," has released four seasons that covered 28 countries. Overall, CNN says Weir's career has seen him report from "all 50 states and more than 100 countries" in all. How many tons of carbon were released through those endeavors?
Traveling the world and sharing it with viewers is well and fine, just spare the rest of us a lecture about how those without the resources to globetrot in the name of "climate change" need to alter our lives when Weir seemingly isn't willing to do so himself.
