Sunday, August 12, 2012

"Global Warming", "Climate Change", or "How Humans are Trashing the Planet"?

Which phrase is preferable?  Obviously I can't really use that last one (dangit).  But if I don't use Climate Change or Global Warming, what DO I use?  Those who are concerned and worried think that "Climate Change" and "Global Warming" are synonymous.   Those who are more doubtful think that Climate Change is just natural cycling of changes in climate, and they think Global Warming is a crock.  So to them, if I used "Climate Change", they wouldn't think of that in context of being human-caused.  But use Global Warming and it immediately turns them off.  And in my opinion, "Global Warming" is misleading because then when people experience a cold winter or live in a colder area they think that's proof that Global Warming isn't happening.  A surprising number of people also believe that "Global Warming" is thinning of, or a hole in the ozone layer.

Oh I know, I could remove all confusion and call it "Anthropogenic Global Climate Change"!  Except wait...that will actually lead to more confusion since most people who haven't read scientific papers on the subject will have no clue what anthropogenic means.  (FYI it means caused or produced by humans.)

Any suggestions?

BTW, the comments link is annoyingly inconspicuous on blogspot.  Look for a stupid little link down below that says, "0 comments" or whatever number it is at the moment, and click to open the comment box.

2 comments:

  1. Silly hiding comments section...

    How humans are changing the planet

    What kind of planet will you leave to your children and grandchildren?

    Planet Warming (maybe getting rid of "global" will make it fresh, I don't know)

    Earth Climate Warming

    ...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maybe framing it as a question ("Are we changing our planet?") would be less of a turn-off to those predisposed to disbelieve. And then providing solid, verifiable evidence that, yes, we are.

    ReplyDelete