One local meteorologist from Iowa is now quitting his job thanks to
the harassment as well as violent threats that he has faced thanks to
talking about the weather and specifically climate change.
That is now the response from some across America.
If you admit that climate change is a reality, that it's happening,
that humans are contributing to it, you might have to fear for your life and
the life of your family.
The person we're talking about here is Chris Glennger,
award winning meteorologist at Des Moines news station KCCI,
who spoke frequently on air about the effects of climate change more than
you would probably see in most weather reports.
And as a result of that faced both letters as well as emails, direct messages,
those sorts of things harassing him and threatening him with violence or death.
You can see here a post collecting a few of those.
So he's providing receipts.
This is not some vague thing that he's saying.
Here are some of the messages that he got.
Getting sick and tired of your liberal conspiracy on the weather?
Just little helpful hint.
Weather and climate are different things.
You can find out about that on the internet, actually.
But anyway, the sender accused Glenninger of being a conspiracy theorist and
a worthless Biden puppet.
Most people don't know that Biden does choose local meteorologists for
TV stations.
Anyway, another told Glennger to, quote, go east and
drown from the ice cap melting, which is interesting because it seems to accept
that climate change is happening and it's having an effect on the ice caps.
Anyway, another says, what's your address?
We conservative Iowans would like to give you an Iowan welcome you will never
forget.
And as a result of that, that is when the meteorologist contacted the police,
his station arranged for a hotel stay and a security details for
his family suit after.
He actually went to a therapist as a result of that,
the man who sent the message was identified, Danny Hancock.
He was actually charged with third degree harassment,
was expected to pay some sort of fine for it, but is still out there,
obviously, and messages kept coming even after that.
And so there are a lot of jobs where you are expected to be brave and
to endure a lot.
I don't think a lot of people getting into the weather reporting game expect that
they're gonna have to face the possibility that someone could try to kill them and
their families.
>> Yeah so guys, this is a disastrous story about the state of
the country and the sign of the times on two fronts.
Number one, the guy's just doing the weather and he's telling you facts,
indisputable facts about the weather and about climate overall, right?
They're like, me know, like facts.
Me know, like weather.
You said it's 45 degrees.
Well, I wanted it to be 70.
It's your fault.
No, dude, he's just like they're literally trying to shoot
the messenger he's just telling you facts.
It's gonna rain, it's not gonna rain.
Here's why it's going to rain.
Here's why it's going to rain a lot or rain very little.
That's his job as a meteorologist.
But now they're out there threatening anyone,
not with different opinions, but with facts.
You are scientist.
Yeah, you think the vaccine works?
You think COVID is real?
Doctor, I hate you.
And I'm not kidding.
I mean, look at what they did to Fauci.
First of all, I mean, that's obvious.
But it's not just Fauci.
Which leads to point number two.
Most of you probably don't ever see this.
I hope not.
And you don't interact with it in your normal life because you're not
a public figure.
But anyone who's a public figure that isn't, like,
lunatic right winger will get these vigilante brown
shirts threatening them, their family, their lives,
24/7 nonstop, and, like, it's become normal.
Yeah, if you were trying to do something good in the world, or
you think maybe people should be decent to one another or forget any of that.
You're just a scientist or a doctor or a weatherman who states facts.
They're like, we don't like facts.
We're going to kill you.
I'm not 1% exaggerating.
It happens to every one of us, and we're just supposed to accept it.
Yeah, okay well, I mean, the fascists might murder us and
all threaten to murder us because we dare to disagree with them.
And those same dumb, dumb fascists will say, I do it because I like freedom.
Doesn't he have the freedom to tell you it's 70 degrees outside?
No, he don't have freedom.
Me have freedom to threaten to kill him.
>> Okay.
>> But there's nothing you could do about it.
The media doesn't care at all.
They're just going to intimidate every decent person in the world, and
we're not gonna be able to do anything about it.
It's deeply depressing, look I want guys like him to be strong and
stay there and to do the weather and to tell people, yes, damn it.
The overall patterns are super obvious, and they are related to climate change.
Not every weather activity, not every weather event,
but look at the macro picture, the big picture.
But those are big facts, my God.
If they hated little facts,
wait till you get a load of how much they hate big facts.
So I can't blame them.
If you've never dealt with it, you don't know.
And it's like, basically it's psy ops.
They get into your head and they try to think, hey,
maybe this guy will murder my kids.
And they think that's, like, fun.
Yeah, I'm having fun.
You stated facts.
I'm the threat to murder you, and then you worry about your kids, your family,
etc, right?
>> Yep. >> But we're all supposed to accept it.
No, and it's not the same and I've had fights with every part of
the political spectrum in America, and just look it up, okay?
The establishment Democrats hate me.
What I would call the extreme left hates me.
The fake left hates me.
The right wing hates me.
But only one of them threatened to kill me, and that's the right wing.
I've never had an establishment Democrat go.
I've had establishment Democrats do terrible things to me and
do character assassinations, but I've never had any of them say,
maybe you should worry about your life.
But the right wing thinks that's awesome and cool and totally normal now.
It's not, it's fascist.
>> Yeah and on one side, you have the fascists, and on the other side,
you have the truth teller, the weather man.
But do you understand that this guy, once he's gone and he is now,
that they won't talk about climate change as much on that station, if at all?
>> Exactly.
>> Because they're the most vocal, they're the loudest, most disgusting focus group.
It doesn't even mean we don't even know if they're the majority of people in that
region, but because they're the nastiest, the most aggressive focus group,
the station is not gonna back him.
I don't wanna hear about a hotel room and some guard, okay?
Been there.
Because it would be a lot easier for him to tell the truth if everyone in that
newsroom and the competition's newsroom and the other newsroom in town said,
you're not gonna push us around.
We said what we said.
Climate change.
We said what we said, but it doesn't happen.
>> Yeah, no, Sharon's a billion percent right.
The whole point of the brown shirt thing.
Not every person who does the threat knows it, but they're part of a system, and
the leaders know it.
That's why they egg it on.
They're all the right wing pundits.
They're like, yeah, maybe you should make them feel uncomfortable.
Yeah maybe you should do something to them.
That's why they say disgusting, sick things all the time over there.
And so the point isn't to just intimidate that one guy in Des Moines.
No, the point is to intimidate anyone who would dare to speak out,
anyone who would dare to tell you facts.
That's their point.