The usual scientific term for what I refer to as “climate chaos” is “climate change.” Scientific preference is a strong argument in favor of using the latter term, and climate scientists prefer it to the term “global warming” because it encompasses changes besides average surface temperature, such as rising sea levels, increased floods and droughts, and stronger storms.
But in my opinion it encompasses too much. After all, denier blather about a new ice age also describes a (discredited) type of climate change. It is rather like referring to cancer as “cell change.” (Cancer certainly is one kind of cell change.) Also a lot of delayers like the term “climate change” because it is emotionally neutral, and it helps them frame the debate they way they want.
What about the term “global warming”?
As mentioned above, scientists don’t like it because it describes only one result of the disaster we are creating. On the plus side, it is a known “brand,” and most people know it is not a good thing. On the minus side, the flaw that most climate scientists dislike also makes it vulnerable to delayers who use every snowy day as an excuse to exclaim, “ha ha! Where is your global warming now?”
What about Amory Lovins’ term “global weirding”? Accurate and a good crack, but I think it would be a mistake to make a joke the primary term for a topic of serious discussion. “Climate disruption” is better. It’s both accurate and a description with a negative connotation. But I think it has too many syllables for maximum emotional punch. “Climate chaos” carries almost the same connotation, but to me comes across as a stronger term.
Obviously this is a very subjective judgment. And while I don’t want to obsess about terminology, names do matter. What term (not limited to the choices discussed above) do you prefer, and why?
Skeptics claim global warming is fake after top scientists’ emails hacked at CRU
Comments
View as Flat
Anthony Posted 1:43 am
23 Jan 2009
Yes it is true that more climate chaos will follow and that the warming will not be benign.
I came, I saw, I cried
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gmobus Posted 1:52 am
23 Jan 2009
In the current case I think you need two kinds of names. A scientific moniker probably ought to focus on the attractor basin switching of a chaotic system being driven. The chaotic system is the entire geochemical, geophysical, and climate regimes. This would include ocean acidification, sea level rise, weathering patterns, and, of course, climate change with its higher variances (greater extreme weather events).
And too there is the impact on social systems. We humans are still parts of nature, components in the world system, as it were. Our societies are going to be changed as a result of increased CO<sub>2</sub> in the bio-hydro-geo-atmo-sphere. If you are looking for a common name that will evoke emotional responses, that would be the image to convey, I think.
So a scientific term not unlike the binomial nomenclature terms (Homo sapiens) for scientific objectivity and a popular term (human) for broader consumption and agenda influencing might be in order.
I must note, in fairness, that in the case of the BN name for humans, the selection of the species name seems to have been emotionally motivated, wishful thinking. In having caused so much potential havoc (not to mention the historical havoc) humans don't appear to be particularly sapient.
Question Everything
George
George Mobus,
Associate Professor, Institute of Technology,
University of Washington Tacoma,
and Professional Student for Life
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gmobus Posted 1:55 am
23 Jan 2009
George
George Mobus,
Associate Professor, Institute of Technology,
University of Washington Tacoma,
and Professional Student for Life
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Ken Ward Posted 2:29 am
23 Jan 2009
Charting "global warming" against "climate change" shows that people use the first one, while media (presumably reflecting scientific commentators), use the latter term.
I'm trying to retrain myself back to "gw" after having successfully made the transition to "cc" a couple years back.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=global+warming%2C+climate+ ...
Ken Ward
ken[at]brightlines.org
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archigeek Posted 2:52 am
23 Jan 2009
The mellotron is your friend.
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Pangolin Posted 3:01 am
23 Jan 2009
Put the Carbon Back
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Jon Rynn Posted 3:10 am
23 Jan 2009
The other advantage of "global warming" is that it neatly encapsulates the core of the problem -- increased heat retention -- which is what greenhouse gases do, nevermind the occasional part of the planet that gets colder as a result of some weird chain of events.
by the way, I thought scientists were using "anthropogenic global warming" as their science-y phrase.
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kmp Posted 3:33 am
23 Jan 2009
Anthropogenic climate change seems the most accurate scientific term to encompaass all the weather changes related to the human industrial age.
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Gar Lipow Posted 4:03 am
23 Jan 2009
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mihan Posted 4:45 am
23 Jan 2009
I like "Climate Chaos" because it conveys that, too. It also sounds more urgent that "change".
I think "warming" is also limited because it allows deniers to (perhaps rightfully) say, "What's wrong with a little warming?" But it's the other stuff that'll kill ya, even in temperate/polar climes.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:57 am
23 Jan 2009
But that average doesn't tell us wether it will be warmer where we live at any particular time, or even that the average yearly temperature will rise in our local area or region.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Patrick Mazza Posted 5:19 am
23 Jan 2009
I use both terms. I also use climate disruption and climate crisis. Radical climate change or climate destabilization also describes it very accurately, but a bit long. Consider the number of syllables - 3 or 4 at most work for general public discussion.
There's also -
End of the world as we know it
Hell on Earth
Global FUBAR (fucked up beyond all recognition)
Patrick Mazza
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:19 am
23 Jan 2009
Climate Activist for some reason doesn't quite strike me right.
How about "Climate Realists"
-David Ahlport
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Tom Laskawy Posted 6:15 am
23 Jan 2009
I, too, like climate disruption but agree it doesn't "pop". But "the climate crisis" may be the one - at least for politicians and the media. It captures the drama and the need for action better than any of the others.
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lgcarey Posted 8:40 am
23 Jan 2009
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hapa Posted 11:15 am
23 Jan 2009
i vote to call the general oversploitation of the earth "peak everything."
i vote to call people who want to avoid "peak everything": sensible and good.
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kmp Posted 2:37 pm
23 Jan 2009
I hear it often enough; there has been drought for who knows how long in the South, and my Mom, in North Carolina, will toss off a resigned shrug, sigh, and say "global warming" in the same tone you would use to point out someone with 13 items in the 10-or-less isle at the grocery store.
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JMG Posted 7:40 pm
23 Jan 2009
It's not my usual bent to pick up on a longer word, especially one with a Latinate ending (destabilize/ation), but "climate chaos" just isn't selling -- people are not experiencing the chaos. The change is just too imperceptible thus far, and our horizons are too short.
On the other hand, people know that instability is bad in things that need to be stable ...
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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JMG Posted 7:44 pm
23 Jan 2009
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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spaceshaper Posted 9:54 pm
23 Jan 2009
Climate crisis sounds right: something that is here and now with observable effects but which has not yet gone beyond the point of no return. Crisis conveys urgency, but also a sense that total disaster may be averted if intelligent action is taken - the Cuban Missile crisis, the mortgage crisis, the global financial crisis etc. etc. Crisis is the word traditionally used to put a developing situation on the front burner of the public agenda. "President Obama has made dealing with the financial crisis the top priority of his new administration." You've heard that phrase a dozen times since Tuesday. Substitute 'climate' for 'financial', get that meme to stick in the public imagination and there you have it.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Billhook Posted 11:50 pm
23 Jan 2009
I've long used "Climate Destabilization" as an accurate descriptive warning of what has begun and what we face in growing intensity.
There are some for whom "destabilization" is reportedly too difficult a word to comprehend, whereupon Climate Chaos, GW or CC must serve.
OTOH, the concept of destabilization tends to be particularly effective in alerting people in finance, industry and politics (for whom stability is golden).
Moreover, awareness of the equally worrying concept of "Climatic Destabilization" flows directly from the use of this terminology.
Regards,
Billhook
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 3:04 am
24 Jan 2009
"Global warming" suffers from several faults, but I think the most important is this: People who know very little about the science tend to take the term "global warming" to mean that scientists are asserting the world will just get progressively warmer and dryer in a uniform and linear way, each season of the year being warmer and dryer than the previous year's. This, of course, isn't what the models predict at all, and not what's happening, either. Consequently, every cold snap and heavy winter storm brings out the peanut gallery saying "So much for global warming!"
As for "climate change," that term is far too mild to convey the scope of the effects we face, and it's also hampered by the fact that most people in the industrialized world generally assume "change is good." Given how dissatisfying the industrialized way of life is, how far short of meeting our real needs as human beings it falls, I think it's no wonder people look forward to change; we need to be well aware of that strong bias.
As an alternative to both terms, I offer "climate disruption due to global warming," and simply "climate disruption" for short. The advantages I think it offers are:
It more effectively conveys the scope of the problem, "disruption" being a stronger descriptor than "change." No one likes their life or their plans to be disrupted, do they? Disruption definitely carries unpleasant connotations.
It puts the focus on the effects we are feeling, and will feel, rather than the atmospheric change that is producing the effects, which is what "global warming" describes. And the effects are what we need to bring home to people.
"Climate disruption" could be used comfortably by both advocates for action and the scientific community. I think other proposed alternatives, such as "climate chaos" and "climate crisis," are too strong to be adopted by the scientific community because they connote a certainty about the scale of future effects that scientists are likely to be uncomfortable with for the most part. It generally goes against their training to make statements that "go beyond the evidence." But we--and scientists--can safely and honestly say, based solely on the evidence, that we are already experiencing climate disruption, and we can expect to experience larger-scale disruptions in the future based on computer models and other evidence. And we advocates could still use terms like "crisis," "chaos," and "catastrophe" in our work with the public, because those are real risks if greenhouse gases continue to increase, but not as direct substitutes for "global warming" and "climate change."
John Holdren, professor of environmental policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, made the case for the advantages of using global climate disruption when he was a guest on Democracy Now! last summer.
"You can never get enough of what you do not really want." - Huston Smith
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mihan Posted 3:30 am
24 Jan 2009
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Russ Posted 4:11 am
24 Jan 2009
I think "the climate crisis" is as good as it gets - powerful and true - for general audiences and non-scholarly writing, while "climate change" is better for more scholarly or scientific venues or writing (not because it's more accurate than "crisis", but because it denotes rather than connotes, which is probably the scientists' preference).
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Pompey Road Posted 5:47 am
24 Jan 2009
I like the emotional response and love to overuse any shameless ploy that might shock or shame someone to their senses. Destroying space ship earth denotes the perilous predicament humans place themselves in when they destroy the only known place in the universe we can survive.
Murdering Mother Earth with photo after photo and documentary film after documentary film showing the devastation caused by Mountain Top Removal trying to impart an emotional response would not be beneath me. I would hope there would be some psychological association will killing your mother and would post it in maternity wards if they would let me.
I like the over the top and the dramatic, I am working on a rework of Bambi where Bambi and all the little forest creatures are being covered up by a big ol caterpillar bulldozer for a children's book.
What do you think! A little to much maybe?
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Zephaniah Posted 8:34 am
24 Jan 2009
What the future will be:
* rich green fertile bountiful verdant complex agricultural luxurious lush abundant plentiful inexhaustible unending perpetual boundless copious ample prolific flourishing profuse harvest cultivation produce sound vigorous hardy healthy preserve enhance improve conserve protect defend strengthen grow increase develop progress mature stable leafy productive fruitful *
if we are:
Farsighted provident wise prudent acute shrewd considerate provident careful alert
What the future will be:
* sparse scant meager inadequate unstable lean thin limited impaired weakened reduced diminished hurt crushed shrunken mortified distressed crippled damaged harmed ailing ravaged injured spoiled botched mutilate harm waste deprive squander dissipate misuse ruin wreck demolish dwindle decline weaken decrease diminish shriveled impotent subside ebb wane wither shrink stagnate decline destablized barren unproductive sterile empty fruitless *
if we are:
Shortsighted myopic unthinking careless thriftless uneconomical unthinking thoughtless incautious foolish impetuous improvident injudicious heedless inattentive neglectful foolish inconsiderate
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Pompey Road Posted 11:35 pm
24 Jan 2009
Now to be serious I believe sometimes the science and or the way it it presented either gets ahead of the masses or does not connect with most people. Someone said on another post that most people don't care if it gets a couple degrees warmer in the winter and in the summer. I suppose if you make the connection to what is causing Katrina like storms, the new American Dust Bowl and desert encroachment it may be some what more relevant to the common man. If you can show how food production will be effected by climate over the next 100 years it might seem more of an immediate problem.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Jon Rynn Posted 6:41 am
25 Jan 2009
On a slightly different note, I've often thought that the term "Desert Earth" would be a good phrase to describe what will happen if all soils, forests, etc. continue to be destroyed at their current pace, but you could also use the term to describe the extreme effects of ...global warming.
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Billhook Posted 11:06 am
25 Jan 2009
how does "Climate Crisis" advance the will for mass action ?
Where the "Climate Crisis" would be ranked in amongst media fluff on the homeless crisis, the obesity crisis, the immigration crisis, the abortion crisis, etc, plainly depends on a person's prior outlook.
Does calling the climate a crisis advance the issue's priority ? I don't see a reason why it should do much in this regard; it just parks the issue in a queue, and IMHO wholly fails to express its unique and supremely urgent importance.
No single word can do all that, but looking for conformist emotional punch (crisis) at the expense of message (unique threat) seems to me sadly counter-productive.
In this light I suggest that, under the ethos of "Radicalism or Failure," we need a term that is quite new to people, and is very descriptive technically, and is a bit shocking, and makes people think.
Given that "Disruption" is widely seen as implying a distinctly temporary disorder, and one that is tedious but quite endurable, it seems far too tame an option to be appropriate as that new title.
If there were any term more technically descriptive and politically apt than "Destabilization" regarding GW's impact on climate, and hence on ecology, agriculture, economy & politics, I'd like to hear it.
It is the radical option -
One has to ask, if this is not the time for the radical option, when will it be ?
Regards,
Billhook
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Jon Rynn Posted 12:01 am
26 Jan 2009
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amazingdrx Posted 12:26 am
26 Jan 2009
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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314159265 Posted 1:06 am
26 Jan 2009
Mars J. Pictor Florifulgurator, Western Bavarian Forest.
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kmp Posted 1:35 am
26 Jan 2009
I do find myself saying "climate clusterf**k" in conversation... although typing those asteriks is always a pain.
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Pompey Road Posted 1:51 am
26 Jan 2009
Nano Nano....
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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