Agreed. I've always thought "climate change" was weak. Easy to say "Climate has always been changing," as per the wonderful new speaker of the US House of "Representatives."
I liked greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect better. Since I live in a still modestly agricultural area, I like to say we are triple-glazing the planetary greenhouse with methane and CO2. "Heat trapping" as per Mr. Knott. Folks seem to get that. Also that the "heat trapping" was figured out 150 years ago, and the "climate models" just try to calculate in detail when and where the effects of that heat trapping are manifest.
You are so right - language is vital. As a UK climate action charity (Carboncopy.eco), we have recently reviewed all of the language we use, and have adopted the following: 'climate breakdown' instead of 'climate change'; 'methane' gas instead of 'natural gas'; 'heat-trapping pollution' instead of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, etc. We now also avoid using 'carbon footprint', which was a term devised by BP's advertising agency twenty years ago, once they finally gave up denying human-caused global heating, to try and persuade us that our behaviour is the problem - not theirs.
Industrial agriculture, particularly industrial animal agriculture, is a third rail that politicians and the media won't touch.
So many societies have traditionally been herders or pastoralists, we feel it's in our DNA, and maybe it is. It's questionable whether it's ever been sustainable, or whether it's always driven territorial expansion and conflict as new forests are cut down to make way for animals that have over-grazed their welcome.
On a trip to Dartmoor, England, this summer, I learned that the bronze age stone circles were from huts that been abandoned once the inhabitants' sheep and cattle had turned the last of the forest into the moorland it is today. And now we're cutting down the Amazon.
My understanding of the origins of the term "climate change" is that it was a term promoted by conservatives specifically because it's more ambiguous than "global warming." We should indeed be talking about the climate crisis in more direct terms.
Fossil fuel emissions have changed the chemistry of the atmosphere in exactly the same way that steroids change the blood chemistry of a sports player who juices themselves to perform better.
We stop players from juicing themselves because of the negative consequences to their health and to the sports that they play. We need to stop fossil fuel emissions from being injected into the atmosphere (and oceans) because of the negative consequences to the planet's web of life and to humans who live on it.
Keep pounding in that message: it's starting to actually be heard. Steroids may provide a short time boost to the lives of the players who use it, in the same way that fossil fuels have provided a boost to the human race, but by comparing it to steroid use, it flips fossil fuels from a net positive to a net negative that folks can relate to.
Agree with everything in this article, just wish I was learning about this intensification phenomenon under better circumstances. I feel bad because I am constantly learning so much from HEATED and elsewhere but it is within the context of climate catastrophe.
I did think from the headline it was going to be a call for scientists and others to officially change the wording from "climate change" to "climate crisis" or something similar.
Don't mean anything negative by that at all and the information in this article and the request for other reporters is better than mine imo. Just that I have been thinking about a better way to convey what climate change actually is and the urgency of it, mainly because of your push to change natural gas to methane gas.
Unified reporting that informs people what is causing the climate crisis is ultimately what needs to happen to solve this problem, so don't be embarrassed at all for arguing for better journalism.
Climate change denial is like telling a three year old who builds a stack of blocks and then pushes it down to knock it over that they didn't have anything to do with making it tumble.
I don't get the "illogic" of the climate change deniers. Don't they live on the same planet as the rest of us??????
P.S. Feniq is adorable and should be given many treats, immediately if not sooner!
Agreed. I've always thought "climate change" was weak. Easy to say "Climate has always been changing," as per the wonderful new speaker of the US House of "Representatives."
I liked greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect better. Since I live in a still modestly agricultural area, I like to say we are triple-glazing the planetary greenhouse with methane and CO2. "Heat trapping" as per Mr. Knott. Folks seem to get that. Also that the "heat trapping" was figured out 150 years ago, and the "climate models" just try to calculate in detail when and where the effects of that heat trapping are manifest.
You are so right - language is vital. As a UK climate action charity (Carboncopy.eco), we have recently reviewed all of the language we use, and have adopted the following: 'climate breakdown' instead of 'climate change'; 'methane' gas instead of 'natural gas'; 'heat-trapping pollution' instead of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, etc. We now also avoid using 'carbon footprint', which was a term devised by BP's advertising agency twenty years ago, once they finally gave up denying human-caused global heating, to try and persuade us that our behaviour is the problem - not theirs.
Industrial agriculture, particularly industrial animal agriculture, is a third rail that politicians and the media won't touch.
So many societies have traditionally been herders or pastoralists, we feel it's in our DNA, and maybe it is. It's questionable whether it's ever been sustainable, or whether it's always driven territorial expansion and conflict as new forests are cut down to make way for animals that have over-grazed their welcome.
On a trip to Dartmoor, England, this summer, I learned that the bronze age stone circles were from huts that been abandoned once the inhabitants' sheep and cattle had turned the last of the forest into the moorland it is today. And now we're cutting down the Amazon.
My understanding of the origins of the term "climate change" is that it was a term promoted by conservatives specifically because it's more ambiguous than "global warming." We should indeed be talking about the climate crisis in more direct terms.
The Cost.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/24/the-climate-crisis-has-a-price-and-its-391-million-a-day.html
Fossil fuel emissions have changed the chemistry of the atmosphere in exactly the same way that steroids change the blood chemistry of a sports player who juices themselves to perform better.
We stop players from juicing themselves because of the negative consequences to their health and to the sports that they play. We need to stop fossil fuel emissions from being injected into the atmosphere (and oceans) because of the negative consequences to the planet's web of life and to humans who live on it.
Keep pounding in that message: it's starting to actually be heard. Steroids may provide a short time boost to the lives of the players who use it, in the same way that fossil fuels have provided a boost to the human race, but by comparing it to steroid use, it flips fossil fuels from a net positive to a net negative that folks can relate to.
Agree with everything in this article, just wish I was learning about this intensification phenomenon under better circumstances. I feel bad because I am constantly learning so much from HEATED and elsewhere but it is within the context of climate catastrophe.
I did think from the headline it was going to be a call for scientists and others to officially change the wording from "climate change" to "climate crisis" or something similar.
Don't mean anything negative by that at all and the information in this article and the request for other reporters is better than mine imo. Just that I have been thinking about a better way to convey what climate change actually is and the urgency of it, mainly because of your push to change natural gas to methane gas.
Unified reporting that informs people what is causing the climate crisis is ultimately what needs to happen to solve this problem, so don't be embarrassed at all for arguing for better journalism.
Climate change denial is like telling a three year old who builds a stack of blocks and then pushes it down to knock it over that they didn't have anything to do with making it tumble.