I have no objection to this thread or the OP, the discussion is good. However, I’d just like to point out that this is exactly how fake news gets spread. It starts with either a flat-out made up story, or, as in this case, a dubious anonymously-sourced story at a random website with an ax to grind and an obvious political agenda... The story gets passed around by like-minded people and is soon being discussed online via social networks and/or forums just like this one, then the next stage is for the matter to become so ubiquitous that a respectable news source picks it up, and voila: totally fake news that can be attributed to a trusted media site.
The important question is, of course, did any of this really happen, and here it’s pretty obvious that it did not. These are major accusations being made, and we would have heard about it already if it were even remotely true. But their unwillingness to name this mysterious meteorologist is telling. If you read the article carefully, it’s clear CFACT didn’t even talk directly to their alleged anonymous source, they use weasel-wording like “according to an account provided to CFACT”, and so forth. So, somebody told somebody else that this happened, and they brought it to the attention of a climate-denialist website – now there’s some journalistic integrity you can trust! I suppose it’s remotely possible that CFACT has in fact scooped everyone and is the first to break a genuinely shocking story, but… I wouldn’t hold your breath. Until this becomes more than “someone told us about an anonymous source who says that...” I’d say it can be safely ignored.
