8 ms·

The term global warming really did a number on the awareness of climate change.

Fellshard 6y ago
Arguably, the term itself was only part of the problem; the ensuing propaganda deluge that followed in its wake also seriously conflicts with the claims. tl;dr: hyped-up panic usually finds itself at odds with findings mere years later. Slow down and step carefully, and you'll find you don't get this kind of whiplash.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  But in this particular case, all signs point to the panic being significantly hyped-down: the world is in a much worse shape than most mainstream predictions, and global warming is accelerating faster than many "worse-case scenarios" even a decade ago. It's also important to remember that this isn't a gradual phenomenon - there are certain break points that, when we'll reach, we won't ever be able to go back. And by all accounts, unless we significantly change the global economy literally today, there is no chance that we won't reach those breaking points in 50-100 years. And even if we did today, there's a good chance it's too late. The mess we're leaving for our children to fix should make all of us feel deeply ashamed.
  - Fellshard 6y ago
    Right, but in the early years of messaging, a lot of media was generated that spoke in volumes without proper scientific understanding; or the actual conclusions were stated publicly before sufficient certainty was had, leading to the average person seeing wildly different narratives begin to conflict, one after another. That's a colossal messaging failure, and what's worse is that politicians tend to get stuck in one of the intermediate messages regardless of how outdated it becomes, using it to drive action in all sorts of wrong directions. See the problem?
avar 6y ago
That's like saying the term "stunted growth" in children is bad because we keep finding examples of increasingly taller or obese children. "Global warming" always referred to an on-average increase in warming on a global scale. The term wasn't the issue, it was people intentionally deciding they didn't like it for political reasons.
- wernercd 6y ago
  using unproven science or bad science for political gains is why people don't like "global warming" for political reasons.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Yes the political gains of making sure that we are a little less worse off in the future.
wernercd 6y ago
The term climate change took over global warming because of how laughable wrong all the "global warming" predictions failed to come true and disastrously so. Like most prophecies by religions do.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  The global average temperature is increasing. How is that a failed prediction?
  - wrycoder 6y ago
    15,000 years ago, there was ice a mile thick where I sit. We are still coming out of that glaciation. It is warming. C - catastrophic - there is no evidence in the historic temperature record that anything unusual is happening. A - anthropogenic - the human contribution is small, compared to natural sources. G - global - not local. W - warming - see above. In addition, there is no good evidence that the slight warming in the last 50 years is causing extreme weather events, and there isn’t any good theory to support it, either.
    - tzs 6y ago
      > A - anthropogenic - the human contribution is small, compared to natural sources CO2 from burning fossil fuels and burning plants has a different isotope mix than does CO2 from other sources. We can use this to tell how much of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from that kind of burning. There aren't enough wildfires or other natural sources to account for more than a small fraction of it. Hence, we can prove that most of that type CO2 comes from human sources. And that type account for most of the increase since pre-industrial times.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      > C - catastrophic - there is no evidence in the historic temperature record that anything unusual is happening. There is no evidence in the historic temperature record that the Earth has ever been this hot in the past million years. > A - anthropogenic - the human contribution is small, compared to natural sources. The human contribution to CO2 and other greenhouse gases is not small, it is almost the entire quantity. There is very little contribution to greenhouse gas emissions from non-human sources (of course, methane from cows for example is a human source). > G - global - not local. Not sure what you mean here. > W - warming - see above. see above. > In addition, there is no good evidence that the slight warming in the last 50 years is causing extreme weather events, and there isn’t any good theory to support it, either. The brainwashing propaganda from interested science deniers is not better informed than the practically unanimous conclusions of all the earth's climate scientists. The Earth is headed for catastrophe, both ecologically and geopolitically. Sea level rise is already above initial predictions, and that effect alone will displace the 300 million people currently living in one of the lowest plains by the sea in the world, in Bangladesh. The coming migrant crisis at the confluence of India, Pakistan and China, three nuclear power with an uneasy relationship, would be cause for serious concern alone. Of course, the ever increasing droughts and extreme temperatures (including >50C wet-bulb temperatures, which can kill healthy adults outright) in those same regions makes them a literal hotbed for social and political upheaval like the world has never seen. You are simply deluded if you think everything is fine.
Qwertious 6y ago
The propaganda against climate change did a number on awareness of climate change. Blaming people for not phrasing it perfectly is a secondary cause at most. FWIW a better phrase would be "climate destabilization".
- filoeleven 6y ago
  That’s a good name for it. And to your other point, it must be emphasized that oil and coal companies knew about it 40+ years ago, and chose to fund opposition research and disinformation instead. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_controversy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_co... Exxon knew since the 1970s http://www.climatefiles.com/coal/mining-congress-journal-august-1965-air-pollution-and-the-coal-industry/ http://www.climatefiles.com/coal/mining-congress-journal-aug... Choice quote from this article in a 1966 coal journal: > If the future rate of increase continues as it is at the present, it has been predicted that, because the CO2 envelope reduces radiation, the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere will increase and that vast changes in the climates of the earth will result. Such changes in temperature will cause melting of the polar icecaps, which, in turn, would result in the inundation of many coastal cities, including New York and London.
- dillondoyle 6y ago
  I like Climate Catastrophe, because that's what we are in. Frank Luntz brags (exaggerates) about changing the vernacular to benefit the GOP/deniers - we should do the same to scare people into accepting and understanding the current reality.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
    Catastrophizing doesn't work. It fuels extremism at worst and at best breeds distrust in experts. Covid19 has been a fantastic study on how not to handle global catastrophes.
    - dillondoyle 6y ago
      Just because we can't handle the catastrophe doesn't mean we are not in one (multiple)

Arguably, the term itself was only part of the problem; the ensuing propaganda deluge that followed in its wake also seriously conflicts with the claims. tl;dr: hyped-up panic usually finds itself at odds with findings mere years later. Slow down and step carefully, and you'll find you don't get this kind of whiplash.

tsimionescu 6y ago
But in this particular case, all signs point to the panic being significantly hyped-down: the world is in a much worse shape than most mainstream predictions, and global warming is accelerating faster than many "worse-case scenarios" even a decade ago. It's also important to remember that this isn't a gradual phenomenon - there are certain break points that, when we'll reach, we won't ever be able to go back. And by all accounts, unless we significantly change the global economy literally today, there is no chance that we won't reach those breaking points in 50-100 years. And even if we did today, there's a good chance it's too late. The mess we're leaving for our children to fix should make all of us feel deeply ashamed.
- Fellshard 6y ago
  Right, but in the early years of messaging, a lot of media was generated that spoke in volumes without proper scientific understanding; or the actual conclusions were stated publicly before sufficient certainty was had, leading to the average person seeing wildly different narratives begin to conflict, one after another. That's a colossal messaging failure, and what's worse is that politicians tend to get stuck in one of the intermediate messages regardless of how outdated it becomes, using it to drive action in all sorts of wrong directions. See the problem?

avar 6y ago

That's like saying the term "stunted growth" in children is bad because we keep finding examples of increasingly taller or obese children. "Global warming" always referred to an on-average increase in warming on a global scale. The term wasn't the issue, it was people intentionally deciding they didn't like it for political reasons.

wernercd 6y ago
using unproven science or bad science for political gains is why people don't like "global warming" for political reasons.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Yes the political gains of making sure that we are a little less worse off in the future.

wernercd 6y ago

The term climate change took over global warming because of how laughable wrong all the "global warming" predictions failed to come true and disastrously so. Like most prophecies by religions do.

ineedasername 6y ago
The global average temperature is increasing. How is that a failed prediction?
- wrycoder 6y ago
  15,000 years ago, there was ice a mile thick where I sit. We are still coming out of that glaciation. It is warming. C - catastrophic - there is no evidence in the historic temperature record that anything unusual is happening. A - anthropogenic - the human contribution is small, compared to natural sources. G - global - not local. W - warming - see above. In addition, there is no good evidence that the slight warming in the last 50 years is causing extreme weather events, and there isn’t any good theory to support it, either.
  - tzs 6y ago
    > A - anthropogenic - the human contribution is small, compared to natural sources CO2 from burning fossil fuels and burning plants has a different isotope mix than does CO2 from other sources. We can use this to tell how much of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from that kind of burning. There aren't enough wildfires or other natural sources to account for more than a small fraction of it. Hence, we can prove that most of that type CO2 comes from human sources. And that type account for most of the increase since pre-industrial times.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    > C - catastrophic - there is no evidence in the historic temperature record that anything unusual is happening. There is no evidence in the historic temperature record that the Earth has ever been this hot in the past million years. > A - anthropogenic - the human contribution is small, compared to natural sources. The human contribution to CO2 and other greenhouse gases is not small, it is almost the entire quantity. There is very little contribution to greenhouse gas emissions from non-human sources (of course, methane from cows for example is a human source). > G - global - not local. Not sure what you mean here. > W - warming - see above. see above. > In addition, there is no good evidence that the slight warming in the last 50 years is causing extreme weather events, and there isn’t any good theory to support it, either. The brainwashing propaganda from interested science deniers is not better informed than the practically unanimous conclusions of all the earth's climate scientists. The Earth is headed for catastrophe, both ecologically and geopolitically. Sea level rise is already above initial predictions, and that effect alone will displace the 300 million people currently living in one of the lowest plains by the sea in the world, in Bangladesh. The coming migrant crisis at the confluence of India, Pakistan and China, three nuclear power with an uneasy relationship, would be cause for serious concern alone. Of course, the ever increasing droughts and extreme temperatures (including >50C wet-bulb temperatures, which can kill healthy adults outright) in those same regions makes them a literal hotbed for social and political upheaval like the world has never seen. You are simply deluded if you think everything is fine.

Qwertious 6y ago

The propaganda against climate change did a number on awareness of climate change. Blaming people for not phrasing it perfectly is a secondary cause at most. FWIW a better phrase would be "climate destabilization".

filoeleven 6y ago
That’s a good name for it. And to your other point, it must be emphasized that oil and coal companies knew about it 40+ years ago, and chose to fund opposition research and disinformation instead. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_controversy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_co... Exxon knew since the 1970s http://www.climatefiles.com/coal/mining-congress-journal-august-1965-air-pollution-and-the-coal-industry/ http://www.climatefiles.com/coal/mining-congress-journal-aug... Choice quote from this article in a 1966 coal journal: > If the future rate of increase continues as it is at the present, it has been predicted that, because the CO2 envelope reduces radiation, the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere will increase and that vast changes in the climates of the earth will result. Such changes in temperature will cause melting of the polar icecaps, which, in turn, would result in the inundation of many coastal cities, including New York and London.
dillondoyle 6y ago
I like Climate Catastrophe, because that's what we are in. Frank Luntz brags (exaggerates) about changing the vernacular to benefit the GOP/deniers - we should do the same to scare people into accepting and understanding the current reality.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  Catastrophizing doesn't work. It fuels extremism at worst and at best breeds distrust in experts. Covid19 has been a fantastic study on how not to handle global catastrophes.
  - dillondoyle 6y ago
    Just because we can't handle the catastrophe doesn't mean we are not in one (multiple)