Let's Call It 'Climate Disruption,' White House Science Adviser Suggests (Again) 568
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "First there was 'global warming.' Then many researchers suggested 'climate change' was a better term. Now, White House science adviser John Holdren is renewing his call for a new nomenclature to describe the end result of dumping vast quantities of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into Earth's atmosphere: 'global climate disruption.'"
Re:Disruption sounds temporary ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing is permanent. They earth's climate has 'changed' drastically over several billion years.
And disruption really is more accurate. The data really does support that anthropogenic inputs have altered the natural climate flows (along with meteors, volcanoes and perhaps some other things, but this time it's all about us). And this will disrupt many human activities (I suppose it will also change them).
Still and all it's semantics and unlikely to make a dent in the noise surrounding the topic.
Scientific language not appropriate for the public (Score:2, Interesting)
Nothing is permanent. They earth's climate has 'changed' drastically over several billion years.
And disruption really is more accurate.
And this is a beautiful example of why most scientists should not talk to the public. While your point is factually correct it does *not* communicate to the public what it communicates to the scientifically literate. The public does not think of change in geologic terms, they think of it in personal human experience terms. To the public disruptions are temporary, electricity was disrupted by the storm, etc.
Scientists like Sagan and Tyson do such a great job explaining science to the public because they learned to explain things to the public in the public's language, using the public's understanding and connotations. "Change" works in this sense, "disruption" fails.
Re:I gotta better name (Score:5, Interesting)
It usually turns out that those things use *more* resources than the alternative, hence why they are more expensive. You may save an ounce of oil from the plastics but you use two on the paper processing.
Lets just keep on trying... (Score:2, Interesting)
to rename our efforts to create a world wide carbon exchange to tax nations and deindustrialize them to bring them under rule.
Not going to work, because the cat is out of the bag. The sicence behind Global Warming is so fake, it is like watching two drunk people doing Cherades at your company Christmas party.
We are suppose to be stewards of the Earth. If we REALLY wanted to clean up the environment we would agressive upgrade our energy production facilities like we do with our PC's.
Thorium Nuclear power would be a good place to start.
Chemical Fusion/Low Energy Fusion would be another nice place to start.
We have tons of energy solutions for personal cars/transport and mass transit. We are refusing to do these things because it disrupts the power structures, all of them political.
There world seems to be stuck in a rule by Oligarchs, who are hell bent on bringing another round of fascism to the table.
So we do not get change on any of the issues of energy and environment because they would lose their power structures if we did.
Re:Lets just keep on trying... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Shut Up (Score:4, Interesting)
Incorrect. The guy stuck his neck out making GW his cause and trying to promote activism to reverse it. I'm big into documentaries and there have been dozens since that have come out that are just as important that barely made a whiff in theaters. It's ludicrous to think that someone would use the documentary genre to get rich. Al Gore's efforts took off and to add to that he turned out to be a damned good businessman with his Current network.
Besides, the way to get rich is to be a scientist on the take from Big Oil who uses is credentials to pretend GW isn't real.
Re:I gotta better name (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with that is that "the greenhouse effect" is a *cause*, but "climate change" is a *result*
An effect [merriam-webster.com] is not a cause. For example, the second definition from that link:
an event, condition, or state of affairs that is produced by a cause
Re:I gotta better name (Score:3, Interesting)
Anything is a pollutant of there's too much of it in the wrong place.