increasingly becoming one and the same, and thus we need to start talking less about the weather in moments of extreme conditions and instead not be so reluctant to use the word ‘climate’ to describe what we are experiencing.
     The major news media loves weather. It devotes a generous portion of the 11 o’clock news to it, freelance photographers make good money on images of submerged automobiles after storms like Irene, and some AM stations even pair weather with the vital traffic report. Al Roker wouldn’t be a household name if it weren’t for what’s happening in your neck of the woods. And in the case of a major weather event, TV news reporters prove to us that you don’t even need to be a weatherman to cover the weather – all you need is a poncho and a pair of water pants. But don’t expect to hear the c-word from any of the wind-battered correspondents trying to maintain their balance against the angry gusts that convinced more sensible people to evacuate. That broad view of the landscape – seeing the neck of the woods for the tree, shall we say – is what’s missing from news coverage, and that’s a problem in need of fixing.
     To be sure, there are observers willing to point out just how extreme weather events are collectively beginning to tell a story. September will see the launch of Al Gore’s new Climate Reality Project, which aims to tell the simple truth about climate change. “Across the globe, cataclysmic weather events are occurring with such regularity that it’s being called a new normal. But there’s nothing normal about it,” Gore explains in the site’s promotional video. And in the days after Irene, activists like 350.org founder Bill McKibben