A GB news segment has been compared to Adam Kay’s apocalyptic sci-fi flick Don’t Look Up after a presenter shut down a meteorologist’s warning of 'excess deaths' amid rising temperatures, urging him to be ‘happy about the weather’. Watch the interview here:
GB News’ Bev Turner was speaking to meteorologist John Hammond, who said the extreme weather we’re currently facing is likely to become more frequent and last longer.
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As Turner told Hammond he seemed to be ‘outside enjoying the sunshine’ as he spoke via video link from the garden, she asked: “It’s not too hot, is it?”
Hammond agreed that the 20-degree weather he was basking in was ‘perfect’, but noted how temperatures could rise to 40 degrees early next week, potentially leading to ‘excess deaths’.
“This will be potentially lethal weather for a couple of days,” he warned.
“It will be brief, but it will be brutal.”
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But Turner cut in, saying: “I want us to be happy about the weather. I don’t know whether something’s happened to meteorologists to make you all a bit fatalistic and harbingers of doom, because […] every time I’ve turned [the TV] on and anyone’s talking about the weather, they’re saying that there’s going to be tonnes of fatalities.
“But haven’t we always had hot weather?”
Shaking his head, Hammond said flatly: “Er, no. And we are seeing more and more records, more and more frequently, and more and more severely. So yes, some people always hark back to the summer of ‘76, which was a freak event over 40 years ago.
“But heatwaves are becoming more extreme - this is yet another one that is coming down the tracks towards us.
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"And I don’t think we should be too light-hearted over the fact that many are going to die over the next week because of the heat.
“40 degrees – the sort of temperature this country, I’m afraid, is just not geared up to cope with.”
Naturally, many people were reminded of Kay’s satirical sci-fi film following two astronomers (Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence) as they embark on a huge media tour in an attempt to warn the world of an approaching comet that will destroy planet Earth.
The movie serves as a cautionary comment on the government and media indifference to the global climate crisis, with a tagline from Netflix saying it is ‘based on real events that haven’t happened – yet'.
One viewer tweeted: “#DontLookUp moment.”
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Another wrote: “Does the newsreader realise that Don’t Look Up wasn’t supposed to be an aspirational film?”
Topics: UK News, TV and Film, Weather
Jess Hardiman