Greening Up Your Local Weather, Earth Gauge Delivers

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Over the years TV meteorology has always been a relatively standard sight, a meteorologist reporting on weather in and around the globe, but now in addition to your nightly forecast, a growing number of TV meteorologists are using a new technology that might have made Aristotle an atmospheric scientist rather than a philosopher: Earth Gauge, a free environmental information service from the National Environmental Education Foundation, in partnership with the American Meteorological Society. Its goal is to raise the environmental awareness of the public through TV meteorologists, making their roles broader by providing easy access to environmental tips, climate facts and the latest scientific studies.

Over the years TV meteorology has always been a relatively standard sight, a meteorologist reporting on weather in and around the globe, but now in addition to your nightly forecast, a growing number of TV meteorologists are using a new technology that might have made Aristotle an atmospheric scientist rather than a philosopher: Earth Gauge, a free environmental information service from the National Environmental Education Foundation, in partnership with the American Meteorological Society. Its goal is to raise the environmental awareness of the public through TV meteorologists, making their roles broader by providing easy access to environmental tips, climate facts and the latest scientific studies.

 

So ENN posed a few questions to Sara Espinoza, the Program Manager of Weather & Environment for Earthgauge to find out a little bit more about Earth Gauge:

ENN: What's the environmental mission of EarthGauge:

SE:The goal of Earth Gauge is to raise the environmental awareness of the public through a trusted professional - the broadcast meteorologist - while also empowering individuals to feel they can take simple stewarship actions in their community to make a difference.  When faced with alarming headlines about global environmental issues, taking personal action can seem overwhelming and pointless, yet simple day-to-day choices are increasingly responsible for high energy consumption, water and air pollution, sprawl, and other problems.  EarthGauge links environmental impacts to something that affects everyone - the weather - and gives viewers easy tips to address those impacts at home.

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ENN: How is Earth Gauge different from other feed services?

SE: Earth Gauge is unique in that it provides a weekly e-mail service linking environmental impacts to the 3-day forecast in a given community- the information is tailored to be relevant to the weather for that particular week.  Earth Gauge information that to goes to Albuquerque may be significantly different that information going to Boston.  The local weather provides a frame of reference for talking about key environmental topics -- water quality on a rainy day; energy efficiency during the heating and cooling seasons; water conservation during drought; etc.

 

ENN: How does EarthGauge work with TV meteorology?

SE: Earth Gauge is a program partnership with the American Meteorological Society (AMS), the premier professional society for meteorologists in the U.S.  For several years, AMS has been promoting broadcast meteorologists as "Station Scientists" who can cover a variety of science topics for the station, above and beyond the weather.  Earth Gauge supports this concept by providing simple environmental facts and tips that are designed to only take 20-30 seconds of airtime and fit seamlessly into the weather report. Right now, the program is reaching 101 local meteorologists in 65 cities, which collectively reach 165 million viewers.  On average, local meteorologists use information on-air twice a month; about a dozen stations are using it weekly.  Information is also used online, in blogs, in newspapers, on the radio, and in community outreach visits. We also have a partnership with The Weather Channel, which reaches an additional 87 million viewers, and estimates using Earth Gauge on-air two- to three-times per day.

 

ENN: Future Plans for Earth Gauge?

SE: Our goal is to reach 100 media markets by the end of 2007.  Over the next two- to three-years, our goal is to have at least one meteorologist participating in each of the 212 U.S. media markets. We would like to increase the frequency of Earth Gauge use, so that most meteorologists are using it on-air on a weekly basis.  Ultimately, our goal is that it becomes the normal practice to include environmental information in the weather forecast, rather than the exception. We are also exploring how we can expand the use of Earth Gauge beyond television through newspaper syndicates and radio programming.

You can read a recent article published in TV Week about Earth Gauge and how it’s being utilized by various meterologists around the country here at TV Week

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