“For those who look again at these early broadcasts from 1989, you possibly can see the awkwardness,” laughs the meteorologist. “I had no media coaching. It was simply go along with the banana.”
Boy’s dream
RTL had simply been based, then nonetheless as RTL Véronique. For the climate report in RTL Information, the brand new broadcaster signed a contract with Meteoconsult. Primarily for the information. However additionally they had a younger man there who was fairly keen to do the climate speak within the broadcasts.
“That made my boyhood dream come true,” Van den Berg says now. “As an 8-year-old boy, I already stated that I wished to sooner or later speak concerning the climate on tv. And I’m grateful that I’ve been capable of pursue my interest on this method for 35 years.”
What units him other than the opposite climate ladies and males? “It is onerous to say about your self, however I’ve typically heard from viewers that they may see that I’ve a pure ardour for the climate. And that is true, I am nonetheless busy with it even on trip. It comes from my toes and from my coronary heart. I imagine the viewers has seen that too.”
Fireworks from the sky
Remarkably sufficient, he loved the moments when know-how failed him essentially the most. “That’s after all thrilling, however these are the moments when you must depend on your craftsmanship. When you possibly can inform an excellent climate story completely from your self.”
He likes uncommon climate phenomena greatest, he says, and particularly ‘a pleasant, fats thunderstorm’. “Throughout a thunderstorm I all the time go outdoors, though I typically keep comparatively secure underneath a shelter – not underneath a tree, after all! In order that I can see and listen to it properly. Fireworks from the sky, I typically name that. Lovely.”
The weatherman thinks it’s time to cease and additional develop his different actions. Van den Berg has been self-employed since 2018 and has arrange a audio system bureau. “I give a whole lot of lectures, and I set up occasions across the local weather and sustainability.”
He additionally writes articles, books and instructing supplies. “Plus, I am engaged on a documentary about constructing with biobased supplies, which might be broadcast on tv within the fall.”
Power transition
He additionally has a message: “I really feel the urgency to obviously clarify why we should speed up the power transition. I solely concern that this acceleration may develop into a delay underneath the brand new cupboard.”
Though he’s saying goodbye, it’s by no means utterly dominated out that we’ll see him once more, he says with a wink: “I additionally stated goodbye to the editorial employees 15 years in the past as a result of it appeared for some time that I must depart resulting from modifications on the channel. was not wanted. However then I used to be again inside a month. So that you by no means know…”
