President Obama is talking with prominent weather forecasters such as NBC’s Al Roker and ABC’s Ginger Zee as he seeks to make the case that climate change is real and is already impacting the U.S., TheWrap.com reports.

Obama is taking his points to television viewers, following the release of a new report called the National Climate Assessment, which says that climate change is already hurting America.

“Part of the reason for putting forward this assessment — which involved hundreds of people, experts, businesses, not for profits, and local communities sharing their experience — is we want to emphasize to the public, this is not some distant problem of the future,” Obama told Roker on an interview that was set to air today, Wednesday.

The story adds: “The president is going to the people because of what he called ‘resistance in Congress’ — specifically, Republicans who insist that evidence of climate change is inconclusive, despite a near consensus that greenhouse gases are melting the polar ice caps, polluting the air, and otherwise hurting the planet.”

Al Roker