Resources: Video
Last Update: 01/20/2023
Ordered by Date Added - most recent on top
Ordered by Date Added - most recent on top
if readers know of videos illustrating important climate science concepts, please send your recommendations to Ray.
6/6/2024 "Climate Adam" interviews Katharine Hayehoe:
I have mentioned both "Climate Adam" and Katharine Hayehoe before, but in the following interview you can see them together. They talk about how they both cope with the emotional toll that comes with knowing how urgent the problem is while also being on the receiving end of some vicious attacks. They talk about what it means to "practice hope." If readers themselves or those they know (especially our youth) are experiencing dispair over the dangers of climate change, this is a wonderful video for them to watch. To watch it click here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiIwksRaynA&t=10s
And while we are mentioning Katharine Hayhoe here is a wonderful example of her work, part of her series on "global weirding":
It explains why we need to be concerned about global warming of just a degree or two even though we experience every day in our own lives a change in the temperature much larger than this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cRCbgTA_78
And while we are mentioning "Climate Adam", here is an example: It discusses how the climate changed naturally over the past million years as the climate went through a series of ice ages. But it also emphasizes the dramatic difference between those 'glacially slow" changes and the alarmingly rapid changes in climate we are now seeing, due to our use of fossil fuels.
Some people find his videos "corny", but I enjoy them. More importantly, I think kids would enjoy them too. To see this one, click here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa0ZHAcPHew
1/20/2023: Two short videos on climate change with a humorous touch:
Presentations on contentious subjects are often more effective when presented with a bit of humor, especially when presented to those skeptical of the position of the presenter. Climate change and the need to deal with it certainly fall in this category. So I am happy to call the attention of readers to a series of such presentations by "Climate Adam" (Dr. Adam Levy) who has a PhD in climate science from Oxford University. Here are two of them.
The first explains why 2023 is virtually certain to be one of the hottest (perhaps the hottest) ever recorded since instrument record keeping began. You can see the YouTube video of that here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RbeXUV4OWs At the end of this presentation you can find out how to subscribe to the "Climate Adam" series.
A second one discusses the prospects of offshore wind generation using floating wind turbines--a topic much in the news here on the California central coast with the leasing of segments of the Morro Bay offshore wind area. See that video here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hsApXeUv_Y
Some may find these short videos a bit "corny"--but I enjoyed them and the science is reliable. I would be interested in the reaction of readers to this series.
A video of a presentation on Solar Geo-engineering. This video is a discussion by Dr. Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, and a geophysicist and Dr. Christopher Field, Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Dr. Field has carried out many years of research on the human and ecological impact of climate change.
The topic of solar geo-engineering is a very controversial and complex one, but one which we will have to address.
I believe the two participants and the moderator provide a thoughtful discussion of this topic. The video runs about 57 minutes and may be seen here: www.nationalacademies.org/event/05-20-2021/climate-conversations-solar-geoengineering
Then scroll down to the video screen.
Video recording of zoom presentation by Ray Weymann and Dr. Tim LaSalle: On June 4, 2020 Dr. Weymann and Dr. LaSalle gave a presentation "Climate Change and How to Deal With It". It was recorded and can be viewed here:
tinyurl.com/ydysjdwm
Dr. Weymann's review of the basic science of climate change and its impacts runs through the first 13 minutes, followed by his discussion of renewable energy. Dr. LaSalle has done important research on Regenerative Agriculture and the huge potential for soil capture of carbon dioxide. His presentation begins at 20:50. Dr. Weymann was asked a question concerning recycling of Lithium-ion batteries. He has subsequently found two resources about that. See the following three links: cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-recycling-lithium/97/i28 , cen.acs.org/energy/energy-storage-/Northvolt-building-future-greener-batteries/97/i48
and recellcenter.org. In addition, here is a link dealing with recycling of photovoltaic panels:
www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/2017/10/the-opportunities-of-solar-panel-recycling . Both these programs need to be vastly expanded.
This short video, “Science in America” by superb science communicator and Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, was posted on many websites just prior to the worldwide March for Science. His message is powerful and more important than ever.
The following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD0c-AlO_i4 is one of a series of reports by NBC Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engle and aired on an MSNBC program.The video runs for about 15 minutes and it documents the extraordinary and ambitious path towards renewable energy and electric cars that China and India. have embarked on.
When President Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the Paris Accord, one of the reasons given was that
China and India were not making any effort to cut emissions, a claim that has been often echoed since. This documentary
segment not only shows how erroneous this belief is, but it also points out the enormous economic opportunities that
the U.S. is missing out on under the current U.S. Administration’s energy policies.
(China and India have a combined population nine times that of the U.S. population)
Viewers will have to put up with the “news crawlers” at the bottom of the screen on the date this program aired, but that
minor annoyance is, in my view, well worth it, given the high quality of Engle’s report."
The Ecological Impacts of Climate Change.
https://youtu.be/Sl6zcrLllPs
This talk is by Dr. Lou Pitelka on the Ecological Impacts of Climate Change.
This is the 4th in a series of talks on climate change "Earth, Fire, Winds of Change, Being Stewards of God's Creation” given at the First Presbyterian Church in San Luis Obispo.
The Health Impacts of Climate Change.
https://youtu.be/Sl6zcrLllPs
Dr. Stephen Hansen, MD on the Health Impacts of Climate Change.
This is the 3rd in a series of talks on climate change "Earth, Fire, Winds of Change, Being Stewards of God's Creation”
given at the First Presbyterian Church in San Luis Obispo. The talk is by Dr. Stephen Hansen MD.
The Health Impacts of Climate Change.
https://youtu.be/F9U4On7GhzE
This is the 3rd in a series of talks on climate change "Earth, Fire, Winds of Change, Being Stewards of God's Creation”
given at the First Presbyterian Church in San Luis Obispo. The talk is by Dr. Stephen Hansen MD.
As previously noted, due to some technical issues caused by me, the editing of the 4th in this series
Ecological Impacts of Climate Change by Dr. Lou Pitelka, was delayed, but will be posted in a few days
Earth, Fire, Winds of Change, Being Stewards of God's Creation
https://youtu.be/dB_T6QHIGVE
This is the 5th and last in a series of talks on climate change given at the First Presbyterian Church in San Luis Obispo.
The talk is by Dr. Sharon Rippner, who is head of the local chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby, which advocates for a revenue-neutral carbon fee, and bipartisan Congressional action on climate change. Her talk also presents practical steps for citizen involvement in this issue.
Due to some technical issues caused by me, the editing of the 3rd and 4th in this series: Health Impacts of Climate Change by Dr. Stephen Hansen, and Ecological Impacts of Climate Change by Dr. Lou Pitelka, were delayed, but will be posted shortly.
-Ray Weymann
Human Caused Climate Change: Basic Science and some Paths Forward:
https://youtu.be/ZahX_bk7bL4
The video is from a talk given by Dr. Weymann at the First Presbyterian Church in San Luis Obispo June 4th, 2017. It is the first of a series of five talks presented by the First Presbyterian Church: ""Earth, Fire, Winds of Change, Being Stewards of God's Creation.”
The 2nd video "What is going on with our climate and weather?" https://youtu.be/iqyx-4RZd08 is a wonderful and entertaining talk by San Luis Obispo and PG&E meteorologist John Lindsey, the 2nd in this series.
Subsequent talks by Dr. Stephen Hansen (Health Impacts of Climate Change), Dr. Lou Pitelka (Ecological impacts of climate change) and Dr. Sharon Rippner (The Citizens Climate Lobby, a revenue-neutral carbon fee, and bipartisan Congressional action on climate change) will be posted in early August.
Special thanks to Simo Nylander of SN Films for generously contributing his time and exceptional skill to the editing of these videos and to Steve Smith for maintaining this website.
Science in America.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MqTOEospfo&feature=youtu.be
This short video, “Science in America” by superb science communicator and Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, was posted on many websites just prior to the worldwide March for Science. His message is powerful and more important than ever.
Katharine Hayhoe Videos
Katharine Hayhoe has produced more of her wonderful “Global Weirding” videos. I will post links to her other videos shortly, but this one is important: It talks about what does, and does not, work when communicating with friends, family and neighbors about Climate Change.
Her point is that just communicating the scientific facts often is ineffective, and sometimes even hardens attitudes. My experience, though, is that this is not always true. There are many people who are not predisposed to discard what we know about climate change, but are simply unaware of the scientific evidence. But for those who are strongly inclined to doubt the science, however, this video has some important insights:
"If I just explain the facts, they'll get it, right?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkMIjbDtdo0
The following links are to the first four in a series of short videos by climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. A Canadian by birth, she now is on the faculty of Texas A&M. Her fresh, buoyant attitude, coupled with her credentials as a first rate climate scientist make her one of the most effective and respected communicators of climate science that I know of. She also happens to be an evangelical Christian who communicates especially well with those in that group.
This series of videos can be enjoyed by viewers of all ages as well as those who are still skeptical of the reality of human-caused climate change and the need to deal with it. I will post others in this series as they become available.
Episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvr8WJwKcIA “Welcome to Global Weirding”
Episode 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpqBto89i38 “Just how long have we known about climate change anyways?”
Episode 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_r_6D2LXVs “Texas and Climate Change"
Episode 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m50bYJX2i6I "How do we know this climate change thing is even real?”
Extreme Weather Events on a Warming Earth
This is a recent new video by climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf. It discusses extreme weather events and new insights into a process causing these events. The video is accompanied by a commentary summarizing the main ideas in the video.
Denial101x Making Sense of Climate Science Denial University of Queensland, Australia
An excellent 2015 series of many YouTube videos covering various aspects of climate science focused on climate science denialism, including interviews with a number of highly respected climate scientists, all part of a seven-week climate science course at the University of Queensland. Course Description Here are some selected recommended videos:
- Course Welcome 9:08
- Course Overview 2:43
- Consensus of Scientists 6:57
- Scientific Method 6:01
- Dr. Ben Santer - Human Fingerprinting 35:40
- Dr. Michael Mann - Unprecedented Warming Trend 58:36
- Dr. Richard Alley - Study of Ice Sheets 23:09
- Sir David Attenborough 6:03
- Dr. Naomi Oreskes 46:08 Co-author of book and movie "Merchants of Doubt"
- Complete List of Videos
We Are All Sitting Ducks
This video, entitled "We Are All Sitting Ducks" was presented by Dr. Chris Field in July 2014.
Dr. Field is the Director of the Department of Global Ecology of the Carnegie Institution for Science, located on the Stanford University Campus. He served as co-chair of the most recent
IPCC Working Group II on climate change "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability" released in
2014. The title derives from the observation that we have not really taken the steps necessary to effectively manage the risks associated with extreme events (like hurricane Sandy.). This video, runs about 23 minutes. There are no equations or graphs (in fact no slides at all.)
Instead, there is a lucid discussion stressing the need for an appropriate mix of adaptation (preparing for climate change impacts that are "baked in" to the system) and mitigation (reducing emissions to avoid a temperature rise so high that we will find ourselves in totally uncharted and high risk territory.)
Chasing Ice - Global Warming At Work
08.17.14 13:15
While words can attempt to convey the reality of rapid climate change, images can often convey this reality much more powerfully. A recent example is a portion of a TED talk presented by "Chasing Ice" glacier photographer James Balog of Extreme Ice Survey. I urge readers to view this video clip Chasing Ice - Global Warming At Work. If you find this video clip of interest, please watch the full 1-hour Chasing Ice video.
PETM - Unearthing Ancient Climate Change
February 2013, American Museum of Natural History, 8 minutes
Fifty-five million years ago, a sudden, enormous influx of carbon flooded the ocean and atmosphere for reasons that are still unclear to scientists. What is clear is that as atmospheric CO2 content increased, the average global surface temperature rose 5°C to 9°C (9°F to 16°F). The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), as this global warming event is known, lasted upwards of 170,000 years and had dramatic impacts on living things both on land and in oceans. In this feature, a team of paleontologists, paleobotanists, soil scientists, and other researchers take to the field in Wyoming's Bighorn Basin to document how the climate, plants, and animals there changed during the PETM. Their work will help predict how our current global warming event could affect life on Earth.
Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets
February 2013, National Science Foundation, 2.5 minutes
The Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) is a Science and Technology Center established by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2005 with the mission of developing new technologies and computer models to measure and predict the response of sea level change to the mass balance of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. The NSF's Science and Technology Center (STC) program combines the efforts of scientists and engineers to respond to problems of global significance, supporting the intense, sustained, collaborative work required to achieve progress in these areas. CReSIS provides students and faculty with opportunities to pursue exciting research in a variety of disciplines; to collaborate with world-class scientists and engineers in the US and abroad; and to make meaningful contributions to the ongoing, urgent work of addressing the impact of climate change.
Climate Change: Lines of Evidence National Academy of Sciences
National Research Council presents a series of videos explaining how scientists have arrived at the state of knowledge about current climate change and its causes.
Related article from Skeptical Science
Related NAS materials:
Booklet (2012) Climate Change: Evidence, Impacts and Choices and Figure Gallery
Booklet (2010) Advancing the Science of Climate Change
Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media
An initiative of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication to “Improve public understanding of climate change.” One of their projects has been to produce a series of videos. Some of these videos feature interviews with climate scientists describing current research. Others deal with aspects of communicating climate science to journalists, TV weather forecasters and the general public. There are (as of December 29, 2012) 20 videos in the series, which can be downloaded from YouTube's Yale Climate Forum Channel. There are many important and interesting articles besides the videos to be found on the Yale Forum site and I strongly recommend it.
Climate Change Basics by Dr. Ray Weymann 50 minutes
In March 2011 I gave a talk on Climate Change at the Atascadero Association of Retired People's building. It was one in a series of forums on issues of general public interest sponsored by the Atascadero Democratic Club. Mr. Walt Reil recorded the talk on video and I have done some editing by inserting the actual PowerPoint slides where appropriate. While some further editing still needs doing, several people have asked me about this video so I am making it available now rather than wait for further editing. Although nearly one year has elapsed since I gave the talk, the basic science is essentially unchanged. I hope viewers will find it useful and I will be happy to respond to comments sent to ray.climate (@ sign) charter.net .
EARTH: The Operators' Manual
04.18.11 National Science Foundation, On-line, 54 minutes
Host Richard Alley – a geologist, contributor to the United Nations panel on climate change and former oil company employee whom Andy Revkin of the New York Times once called "a cross between Woody Allen and Carl Sagan" – leads the audience on this engaging one-hour special about climate change and sustainable energy, premiering during Earth Month 2011. "EARTH: The Operators’ Manual" ("ETOM" for short) is a rigorously researched, beautifully filmed and ultimately uplifting antidote to the widespread "doom and gloom" approach to climate change. The program opens with a thorough grounding in Earth’s climate history and an overview of the current dilemmas, but its main thrust is an upbeat assessment of our many viable sustainable energy options.
Secrets Beneath the Ice
12.28.10 PBS NOVA, On-line, 53 minutes
Almost three miles of ice buries most of Antarctica, cloaking a continent half again as large as the United States. But when an Antarctic ice shelf the size of Manhattan collapsed in less than a month in 2002, it shocked scientists and raised the alarming possibility that Antarctica may be headed for a meltdown. Even a 10 percent loss of Antarctica's ice would cause catastrophic flooding of coastal cities unlike any seen before in human history. What are the chances of a widespread melt? "Secrets Beneath the Ice" explores whether Antarctica's climate past can offer clues to what may happen.
Dr. John Abraham Response to a speech by Lord Christopher Monckton
Christopher Monckton is one of the more prominent 'climate skeptics', though he has no scientific training. In June 2010, numerous assertions in a speech he gave at Bethel College, Minnesota, in October 2009, were dissected in detail in a convincing and entertaining way by Dr. John Abraham, an expert in heat transfer and fluid mechanics and a member of the faculty at St. Thomas University, also in Minnesota. Abraham's response to Monckton has attracted a great deal of attention. The link above consists of a series of short video clips. The entire series runs quite long, but you can step through the slides at your leisure. I highly recommend it. I suggest clicking on the little video camera icon so you can easily scroll down the list of slides. Have your computer's volume turned up to hear the presentation.
Oceans of Climate Change
04.21.09 NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, On-line, 3.9 minutes
This short video, referred to in Lesson 5, and featuring JPL Oceanographer Dr. Joshua Willis, is a wonderful demonstration of the difference between the ability of the ocean and the atmosphere to store heat.
Ray Weymann's Comments:
This is a wonderful program about the history and possible future of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. It runs a bit less than one hour. The Antarctic Ice sheet holds by far the largest amount of fresh water on the Earth. It has been existence for tens of millions of years. If it were all converted to water, the sea level would rise by several hundred feet. The research described in this fascinating video is beginning to reveal that the history of the Antarctic Ice Sheet has been subject to more significant and rapid changes than was believed to be the case until very recently. But the video also shows something else: the enormous dedication of the men and women who are carrying out this research in spite of very primitive and potentially very dangerous conditions. HIGHLY recommended.
Taking Earth's Temperature
2009, NASA, 4 minutes
Earth's climate is changing at an unprecedented rate. This video explores climate modeling and other tools that NASA scientists use to take the Earth's temperature.
What We Know: Interview with University of Georgia's Director of Atmospheric Sciences Marshall Shepherd.