“France will burn”. Marc Hay, weather journalist at BFMTV, pushed, Tuesday, June 14, a rant noticed on the air about the heat wave hitting France, under the effect of global warming. “I think we have to change the way we talk about it, because it doesn’t print. (…) All this will get worse”alerted the presenter.
>> LIVE. Heat wave: an early heat wave hits a very large part of France
His speech highlights a questioning that eats away at an entire profession. How to present the weather in a changing climate? What can be done to warn about the dangers of global warming? Franceinfo asked the question to several presenters and weather presenters.
“We are at a turning point”: Christine Peña, franceinfo
“Basically, he’s right. Faced with global warming, we are all concerned. The matter is too serious. As soon as I can make a link with the climate, I do it, even if we often lack time for radio We see each other regularly with my sisters and brothers at weather forums [le prochain est organisé le 21 juin à Paris] and this subject comes up time and time again: how can we make the link with climate issues in our weather reports?
We are confronted with these events every day. Over the past thirty years, there have been three times more heat waves than in one hundred and fifty years of weather observations. We see global warming, we keep repeating it – I’m thinking of people like climatologist Jean Jouzel, who have been warning for years – and nothing is done. Everyone has to get involved: public authorities, large companies…
When I started, a very long time ago, we announced the good weather by rejoicing, the rain by regretting it. Today, with the drought, more and more listeners are sending me messages to say: ‘Rejoice that we have rain’, even if they remain a minority. We are at a turning point.
“We need to change our ways of presenting events, without being alarmist.”
Christine Peña, weather presenterat franceinfo
Heat waves like the one we know, we will have more and more of them and, yes, it is dramatic. Farmers will lose the fruit of their labor. People who work outside, like those who lay paving stones near my house, will suffer. We cannot be happy with 40°C in Paris.”
“I don’t have the feeling of a general I don’t care”: Sébastien Léas, Radio France
“I have a different cap: I am also a forecasting engineer at Météo France. I do not come from the journalistic seraglio. We follow the guideline of the institution. There are expressions that we do not use.
“For example, we don’t talk about ‘good’ or ‘bad’ weather.”
Sébastien Léas, presenter and weather forecasterat franceinfo
We are before the summer solstice and we are already expecting 40°C in several regions. These are very little observed values, even as a general rule. In Paris, there were only twice a temperature above 40°C.
But I don’t have the same feeling as Marc Hay: when people see the expected values, they are worried. In the media, since Sunday, we are on all the channels, there are reports everywhere. I don’t have the feeling of a general I don’t care. Today, we talk more about global warming and that’s very good. When we talked about it fifteen or twenty years ago, there was a little more skepticism.”
“We no longer know how to present things so that people react”: Géraldine de Mori, RMC
“I found Marc Hay’s intervention very good. A few years ago, if you had told me about a heat wave in June, I would have replied that it was science fiction. We see these extreme events that are on the increase. And no matter how hard we try to raise awareness, we have the impression that we talk about it a little at the time, and then people don’t care. We don’t know how to present things anymore. so that they react. I get a lot of messages from people who say ‘yes, it’s going to be hot, but we’re not going to cry’. Yes, we have to cry.
I’ve been doing this job for over fifteen years and I’ve seen things change. We don’t talk about the weather at all like we used to. The difficulty is to do so without being alarmist. If we are too much, people will fight.
“I can’t find the words anymore. It’s crazy to have such temperatures on June 15. And it’s not normal to have heat waves every year.”
Géraldine de Mori, weather presenterat franceinfo
Fifteen years ago, the weather was superficial, funny and nice. Today, we realized that there was an issue and that the climate was changing. It has become an important and much more serious subject. It’s no longer something that we put at the end of the newspaper.
I’m not going to talk about ‘good weather’ anymore when there’s full sun, but it’s been going on for days and there’s a terrible drought. When the rain will come, I will no longer speak of ‘rainy degradation’, but of ‘rainy improvement’. This is no longer the bad news, rather ‘phew, the rain is coming’. Vacationers may not be happy, but we have to think about the planet. We would like people to realize this. There are fewer and fewer climatosceptics. But the problem is that they are given a much more important place than what they represent.”
“Nobody finds that 40 ° C, it’s pleasant”: Karine Durand, CNews
“I share Marc Hay’s feelings. For several years now, the weather presenters of most news channels have been warning about the effects of global warming. There, it is highlighted by this exceptional heat wave, but this is not necessarily new. On the other hand, a few years back, we could have criticized Marc for having been too alarmist or pessimistic. It still happens that viewers reproach me for it, including in recent days. But as it is a realistic discourse and corroborated by countless scientific studies, it is better accepted today.The reality of global warming and its human origin is not something that can be questioned.
The problem, when you’re a television weather presenter, is that you have very little time: one minute to give the info and add something more. The challenge is to summarize what is important. In situations of good hot weather, like what we experienced in the spring, we do not necessarily believe that this aggravates an already extreme drought situation in the south-east of the country. But whena heat wave like this, no one finds that 40°C is pleasant.
I am a specialist in extreme events and in the United States, where I studied, we take the weather very seriously. I was a little ‘raised’ in this conception. In France, we still have this vision of ‘leisure weather’: ‘Will the weather be nice for my picnic or for my football match?’ But the role of the weather presenter is also an advisory and safety role. We will not escape this development.
“The notion of danger will appear more and more, as will the question of health.”
Karine Durand, weather presenterat franceinfo
Ten years ago, we were already experiencing the effects of global warming, but we did not necessarily know how to attribute certain phenomena. Today, organizations are modeling, with or without greenhouse gases, and studies capable of establishing a link with these extreme events.
A few years ago, we pointed the finger at presenters who talked about global warming. Today, it’s the opposite: we point to climatosceptic discourse. It’s a sign that things are changing.”
“We must not trivialize these events”: Loïc Rousval, France 3 and CNews
“In view of the observed climate change, we must modify our way of presenting weather alerts, be a little less smooth. When we have orange vigilance, that is to say a danger, and more than 40 ° C forecast for mid-June is very early and intense, and therefore worrying for the vegetation, the farmers affected by the drought, people’s health…
“In France, unlike other countries, people don’t pay enough attention to orange or red alerts, and don’t protect themselves enough. And when there is a disaster, it’s too late.”
Loïc Rousval, weather presenterat franceinfo
These phenomena are increasingly precocious, intense and regular. And more and more people trivialize this and live it as a fatality. The problem is that it is a real crisis, a disruption of the climate, in France and on a planetary level. How to approach it so as not to trivialize it? It’s not always easy: we can have the impression of doing too much in the eyes of the public. On continuous news channels, we do not always want to scare, nor add panic to an already anxiety-provoking atmosphere, between the Covid-19, the economic crisis and Ukraine. We want to bring a little escape and t.
The solution may be to use less conventional terms. To be a little less restrained, with a little more colloquial language. Say ‘it’s going to heat up’ and ‘it’s going to fall’ rather than ‘we’re going to have temperatures above normal’ and ‘strong accumulations’. Off-air, we are carrying out a lot of actions against climate change. With Laurent Romejko, I launched the first game on the climate, the big quiz ‘Preserve the planet’.”