The best climate change documentary I’ve ever seen needs your help to get to the finish line. Aiming for a release in early 2027, “Weather Under Fire” follows meteorologist Chris Gloninger as he reports on the link between extreme weather and climate change on Iowa’s local news station, KCCI — until he upsets powerful special interests. He and his family receive death threats, forcing him to abandon his dream job. Now in its final editing process, the film has exhausted its funding and needs donations to pay for the creation of the finished product.
I’ve seen the preliminary version of the 90-minute documentary and rate it the best climate change documentary I’ve seen. Although there have been many excellent ones made, including Al Gore’s famed “An Inconvenient Truth,” these films tended to be fact-heavy.
“Weather Under Fire,” on the other hand, focuses on the personal journey of television meteorologist Chris Gloninger, mixing engaging storytelling with weather and climate science. In addition to tracing Gloninger’s odyssey of reporting on climate change from Iowa, one of the main storylines follows the 2025 flash floods in the Texas Hill Country that killed at least 135 people. The film asks questions: What role did the significant cuts that the National Weather Service endured from DOGE in early 2025 play in this tragedy? And why are we cutting our weather forecasting and research capability and media coverage of climate change at a time when climate change is drastically increasing extreme weather events?
Here is the link for the working version of the trailer.
The movie’s website gives this blurb: “‘Weather Under Fire’ follows meteorologist Chris Gloninger as he reports on the link between extreme weather and climate change on Iowa’s local news station, KCCI — until his dream job turns into a nightmare. Through meticulous investigation told in true-crime cinematic fashion, the feature captures the escalation from a viewer’s violent messages to a police investigation and criminal conviction. Gloninger’s life — and career — are forever changed, but his story is only the beginning. We follow Gloninger and the meteorology community on a journey that uncovers a disturbing pattern of intimidation, misinformation, and defunding efforts across the country aimed at silencing meteorologists, reshaping public understanding of extreme weather science, and ultimately, jeopardizing the well-being of a nation.”
I found the end of the film quite moving, with Gloninger exhorting, “Our atmosphere is broken. It’s the air we breathe, it’s the water we drink, every aspect of our life depends on it, and it needs to be fixed. If the atmosphere could speak, it would just say, ‘Help.'”
So help it! Contribute to the 501(c)(3) charity set up to get this great film to the finish line. I’ve put my money where my mouth is and given it one of my largest charitable donations of the year.
For those who want to know more about the film, you can join a 30-minute Zoom call on Wednesday, October 21, with the director, Sarah Gibson, the star, Chris Gloninger, and me. We’ll be showing a few clips from the movie and answering questions in the chat. At the end, I’ll be giving a 10-minute preview of material I’m working on for future blog posts: the current most concerning sign that “our atmosphere is broken” — the coming winter weather in California from our intensifying Super El Niño.
Here is the link for the Zoom meeting on Wednesday, October 21, at 7:30 p.m. EDT / 4:30 p.m. PDT.
Please help get the word out on this great project by sharing the link to this post, the fundraiser website, and the Zoom call.
Bob Henson contributed to this post.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/10/weather-under-fire-the-climate-change-film-weve-been-waiting-for/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://yaleclimateconnections.org”>Yale Climate Connections</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/yaleclimateconnections.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ycc-favicon.png?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://yaleclimateconnections.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=143478&ga4=1401ERFF5Q” style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/10/weather-under-fire-the-climate-change-film-weve-been-waiting-for/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/yaleclimateconnections.org/p.js”></script>
