I'd like to see us campaign to have more TV meteorologists (weathercasters) use metrics. There should be a very large audience for this in many areas of the U.S. for instance, near the Canadian and Mexican border, and areas with large populations already familiar with metric temperatures from either their past residences and/or education.
Plus we could campaign to have weather apps and other phone apps default to metric rather than the other way. On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 1:00 PM <[email protected]> wrote: > Send USMA mailing list submissions to > [email protected] > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > [email protected] > > You can reach the person managing the list at > [email protected] > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of USMA digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. [USMA 1132] Re: How to Support the Metric System > ([email protected]) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2019 10:45:32 -0700 > From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> > To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> > Subject: [USMA 1132] Re: How to Support the Metric System > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="US-ASCII" > > Peter Goodyear-- You make an excellent point: "It's about time we had > some educators, engineers and scientists promoting the advantages of the > metric system to counter this rubbish. We need to tell the public that > it's easy to learn and easy to use, both for measurements and calculation. > It can save teaching time in the classroom, and time money and materials > in industrial use." > > One of the best ways to implement your suggestion would be get educators, > engineers, and scientists to use the metric system when being interviewed > on television. The problem is that they -- at least most of them -- don't > do so in interviews, even though they use metric exclusively in their > daily work. In effect, they are committing a kind of fraud on the public. > If they did use the metric system in television interviews, there would > probably be no pushback at all. In fact, viewers might just expect it. > > The limited USMA resources can't attack all areas at once, but what about > a vigorous approach to some of the leading scientific organizations to put > out a bulletin to their membership encouraging the practice of using > metric in their interviews. Sometimes, all it takes to solve a problem is > to make people aware and to provide support. > > Since 1988 the metric system is supposed to be the "preferred" system in > the United States. What about getting our contacts at NIST to do this. > What better way of education would there be than to get leading scientists > to use metric on television? It would cost NIST virtually nothing. > > A WARNING. The USMA under Don Hillger and Paul Trusten settled on a > policy to promote metric for practical reasons, such as business and > commerce. Few Americans care how the kilogram is defined, yet it seems > that, up to last week and Tucker Carlson, the only thing that we were > hearing was about the new definition of the kilogram. > > I'm sure that this "scientific" emphasis does not help our cause. It > makes the metric system seem exotic and obsessive, not the system that is > so eminently practical that the whole world uses it. > > Martin Morrison > "Metric Today" Columnist > > > ------------------------------ > > Subject: Digest Footer > > _______________________________________________ > USMA mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma > > > ------------------------------ > > End of USMA Digest, Vol 43, Issue 7 > *********************************** > -- Best, Bill Roush
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