Climate Change By Any Other Name

Inspiring Terms Are Simple. ‘Climate Change’ Isn’t. The doubters and believers aren’t even talking about the same thing.

Faye Flam, May 11, 2018 (Bloomberg News)

“As scientific terms go, “climate change” is failing. Good terms are specific, descriptive and help people to understand complex concepts. Climate change is ambiguous, referring perhaps to the most pressing human-generated environmental problem of the century, or to other kinds of changes that happen through natural forces and have been going on since long before humans arose…The ambiguity of “climate change” plays into the problems [identified by the Wall Street Journal op-ed Climate Activists Are Lousy Salesmen.] This is science, not advertising, and the terms that scientists come up with aren’t decided by public-relations experts using focus groups…

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…[T]he same people who were fascinated by dramatic natural climate changes were the ones to discover that burning up lots of fossil fuel was likely to cause a short-term spike in the global temperature…One could distinguish the current, more rapid climate change by calling it ‘anthropogenic climate change,’ but that term makes people trip over their own tongues…The complexity of climate science may always be at odds with the simplicity that's key to inspiring action…It's too late to prevent anthropogenic climate change, or unnatural climate change, or global warming -- call it what you will. But it isn't too late to slow the warming, and perhaps even reverse it. If only someone could sell the idea.” click here for more

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