How ABC News Chief Meteorologist Ginger Zee explains climate change to her kids

On the air, ABC News Chief Meteorologist Ginger Zee travels the country predicting and reporting on the nation’s weather and the latest issues in the climate crisis.

At home, Zee is a mother of two who, like parents everywhere, is tasked with explaining weighty topics like global warming and the climate crisis to her two young sons.

In a conversation aired during Earth Week, Zee spoke with two moms, Andy Mitchell and Sabrina Kohlberg, co-hosts of the ABC Audio podcast Pop Culture Moms Her approach as a meteorologist and mother.

Zee told Mitchell and Kohlberg that she started by letting her sons know that neither she nor anyone else had all the answers about the Earth and its climate change.

“The first thing to say is, ‘We know a lot. We don’t know everything,'” Zee said. “Put it out there because that’s science. That’s all science.”

Zee then said she used a blanket analogy to explain what scientists know about climate change, because both kids and adults can understand that the thicker the blanket on your legs, the warmer you are.

“We know, and we discovered it a long time ago, almost 200 years ago now… that when we burn things like oil or natural gas, fossil fuels, those gases go into the atmosphere and act like a blanket,” Zee said. “This way, the heat entering our atmosphere from the sun is now covered with a blanket, so we add a blanket.”

She continued, “We always have different layers, we always have different things, but all we do is put another layer on the bed, like we always do in the winter. We don’t have to do that, And we’re warming faster than naturally because the Earth is always warming and cooling, but we haven’t put a blanket over it for the past 150 years.

Zee and other experts highlighted how climate change will make natural disasters such as extreme storms and extreme heat more severe for people.

Zee said the blanket analogy helps explain the scientific explanation of climate change, which is that when humans put gases into the environment, those gases absorb heat, causing the environment to warm.

As a passionate advocate for sustainability, Zee has publicly shared the different ways she is trying to make her life more sustainable, from reducing single-use plastic consumption in her home to participating in the No New Clothes Pledge for nearly two years and pledging not to wear anything new. Buy new stuff.

Zee said when it comes to involving her sons in these efforts, she said she takes a gentle approach while educating.

Zee says she tries to think outside the box even if it’s her birthday. When one of her sons wanted a GI Joe statue for a birthday, she said she went to a resale site and not only found the statues, but at a cheaper price than if she had purchased them new.

“I’m not saying don’t buy anything — there’s a lot of stuff we do need — but maybe stop and think, who made it? How did it get here?” she said. “These are the steps I want them to go through as adults.”

In another example, Zee said her kindergarten-age son wanted to go to the store and buy a specific type of doll that other kids in his class had.

Instead, she said she spent time with him sewing doll clothes and making a hat, transforming an action figure he already had into one he wanted to buy.

“He was very proud of it because he succeeded,” Qi recalled. “I’ll tell you, do you know which puppet is standing proudly on his desk right now? It’s that one.”

Check out the podcast! They’ve been best friends for 20 years and pop culture lovers for even longer. Now, as moms of toddlers, Andi Mitchell and Sabrina Kohlberg are taking their TV and movie obsession to the next level, chatting with celebrities, authors and pop culture “scholars” Peers talk about what they can learn from their favorite fictional moms. The first season of Pop Culture Moms, a new show from Good Morning America and ABC Audio, will be released weekly in May. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.