On Tuesday, Don Lemon was shut down by Jamie Rhome, acting director of the NOAA’s National Hurricane Center, after the CNN anchor asked about the effect climate change had on Hurricane Ian.
Rhome joined CNN’s “Don Lemon Tonight” to discuss Hurricane Ian ahead of its landfall on the west coast of Florida.
Don Lemon claimed meteorologists have said Hurricane Ian could enter “another period of rapid intensification” and asked Jamie Rhome what effect climate change has had on the “phenomena.”
In response, Rhome said, “We can come back and talk about climate change at a later time. I want to focus on the here and now. We think the rapid intensification is probably almost done. There could be a little bit more intensification as it’s still over the warm waters of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, but I don’t think we’re going to get any more rapid intensification.”
Lemon pushed for more from Rhome, saying, “Listen, I’m just trying to get, you said you want to talk about climate change. But what effect does climate change have on this phenomenon that is happening now? Because it seems these storms are intensifying. That’s the question.”
“I don’t think you can link climate change to any one event. On the whole, on the cumulative, climate change may be making storms worse. But to link it to any one event, I would caution against that,” Rhome said.
“Okay, well, listen, I grew up there, and these storms are intensifying, something is causing them to intensify,” Lemon said before moving on.
The past few weeks have been less than stellar for the CNN host. Last week, Lemon suggested to royal expert Hilary Fordwich, a British-American businesswoman and commentator on royal life and the royal family, that the royal family should be paying reparations to the descendants of victims of the slave trade.
“Well I think you’re right about reparations in terms of — if people want it though, what they need to do is, you always need to go back to the beginning of the supply chain. Where was the beginning of the supply chain?” Fordwich asked. “That was in Africa.”
Fordwich continued, “Across the entire world, when slavery was taking place, which was the first nation in the world that abolished slavery? First nation in the world to abolish it … was the British.”
“In Great Britain they abolished slavery,” she said. “2,000 naval men died on the high seas trying to stop slavery. Why? Because the African kings were rounding up their own people. They had them [in] cages, waiting in the beaches. No one was running in Africa to get them.”
“And I think you’re totally right. If reparations need to be paid, we need to go right back to the beginning of that supply chain and say, ‘Who was rounding up their own people and having them hang from cages?’ Absolutely, that’s where they should start. And maybe, I don’t know, the descendants of those families where they died in the high seas trying to stop the slavery, those families should receive something, too.”
Scroll down to leave a comment and share your thoughts.