“France will burn”. Marc Hay, weather journalist at BFMTV, pushed, Tuesday, June 13, a rant noticed about the heat wave that hits France under the effect of global warming. “I think we have to change the way we talk about it, because it doesn’t print and you have to realize that what is happening is only the hidden face of the iceberg”he continued.
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 Pena, franceinfo
“Basically, he’s right. We’re not here just to present things. 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 on the radio. We see each other regularly with my sisters and brothers during weather forums [le prochain est organisé le 21 juin à Paris] and this subject comes up every time: how to make the link with climate issues in our weather reports?
We are confronted with climatic events every day. Over the past 30 years, there have been three times more heat waves than in 150 years of weather observations. We see global warming, we keep repeating it – I’m thinking in particular of people who, like the climatologist Jean Jouzel, 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, there are more and more listeners who send me messages to say: “Rejoice that we have rain”, even if it remains a minority. We are at a turning point. We need to change our ways of presenting events, without being alarmist. The heat wave that we know, we will have more and more, 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 home, will suffer. 40°C in Paris, we can’t be happy about it.”
“I don’t have the feeling of a general ‘I don’t care’: Sébastien Léas, Radio France
“I have a different cap, because 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. example, we are not talking about “beautiful” or “bad weather”. We are before the summer solstice, we are expecting 40°C in several regions. These are very little observed values, even as a general rule. Paris, there was only twice a temperature above 40 ° C. The values should suffice.
I don’t have the same feeling as Marc. 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 were talking about it 15-20 years ago, there was a little more skepticism, there is a lot less today.”
“We no longer know how to present things so that people react”: Géraldine de Mori, RMC
“I found his speech very good. A few years ago, you would have told me about a heat wave in June, and I would have replied that it was science fiction. We see these extreme events multiplying , we may talk about it, try to alert, we have the impression that we talk about it a little at the time and that afterwards people don’t care. We no longer know how to present things so that people react. I receive a lot of messages, from people who say, ‘yes, it’s going to be hot, we’re not going to cry’. If, we have to cry, we just don’t know how to say it anymore.
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. Me, I can’t find the words anymore, it’s crazy to have such temperatures on June 15th and it’s not normal to have heat waves every year. 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’s become an important subject, it’s no longer something you put at the end of the newspaper, it’s become much more serious.
Today, I will no longer speak of “good weather” when there is full sun when it has been going on for days and there is a terrible drought. When the rain will arrive, we will no longer speak of “rainy degradation”, but of a 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 t necessarily new. On the other hand, a few years back, one could have reproached Marc for having been too alarmist or pessimistic – I am still reproached for this, 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 fine 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. With a 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 bit “raised” in this design. 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.
Ten years ago, we were already experiencing the effects of global warming, but we did not necessarily know how to attribute certain phenomena. There, we have organizations that make models with or without greenhouse gases, with studies capable of linking these extreme phenomena. A few years ago, we pointed to presenters who talked about global warming. Today, it’s the opposite and we point to climate-skeptical 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, more than 40°C forecast for a mid-June, it’s very early and intense, it’s worrying for vegetation, for farmers with the drought, for people’s health.In France, unlike other countries, people don’t take enough account orange and red vigilance, and when disaster strikes, it’s too late.
These phenomena are increasingly precocious, intense and regular. We observe a trivialization of people, who experience it as a fatality. The problem is that we must not trivialize these events, which are neither normal nor trivial. It is a real crisis, a disruption of the climate, in France and on a planetary level. How to approach them so as not to trivialize them? It’s not always easy: if you shout the alert, you can have the impression of doing a little too much, in the eyes of the public. On the continuous news channels, we do not always want to scare people, to add fear and panic in an already anxiety-provoking atmosphere with the Covid-19, the economic crisis and Ukraine. We want to bring a little escape and lightness.
The eventual solution is perhaps to use less conventional terms, to be a little less restrained, with a little more colloquial language: saying, it’s going to heat up, it’s going to fall rather than saying ‘we’re going to have temperatures above normal and strong accumulations. Off the 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”.