Anchor's Weather Remarks Likened to Don't Look Up

'I want us to be happy about the weather,' UK presenter said after heat wave warning
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 21, 2022 10:54 AM CDT

Since its launch last year, the GB News channel in the UK has often been compared to Fox News—but critics say a bizarre exchange last week was more like Don't Look Up. In video that has gone viral since record-breaking heat reached the UK earlier this week, meteorologist John Hammond warns that the impending heat wave will be "lethal," and presenter Bev Turner urges him to be more upbeat, BuzzFeed reports. "I want us to be happy about the weather," she says. "I don't know whether something's happened to meteorologists to make you all a little bit fatalistic."

"Haven't we always had hot weather, John?" Turner asks Hammond. He tells her that 40 degrees Celsius—104 Fahrenheit—would be unprecedented and the country is "just not geared up to cope" with it. "Heat waves are becoming more extreme," he warns. Deadline describes the exchange as "eerily reminiscent" of the Netflix satire, in which an approaching comet is used as an allegory for climate change. After the character played by Jennifer Lawrence warns that "the entire planet is about to be destroyed," a news anchor tells her, "We just keep the bad news light." One Twitter user put the two scenes together. (More climate change stories.)

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