24 June 2023
Time to Change the Vernacular of Climate Change.
The extraordinary rise in global temperatures is fueling heat and flood-related deaths, increasing droughts, and overall deterioration of the ecosystems that sustain life on our planet. The scientific consensus that human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are behind this is beyond debate. Yet public knowledge of the issue and climate-responsible actions on a societal scale are lagging to a dangerous degree. The media, policy-makers, think tanks and the scientific community all need to lead a terminology transformation to galvanize attention and action.
We need to change our language to update our perceptions and responses. The euphemisms “global warming” and “climate change” are trite and numbing. We are experiencing “rapid global overheating.” Timing of the climate’s catastrophic tipping points are uncertain, but the trend is not. Heat-related deaths already exceed climate-related deaths we hear about from severe storms and wildfires. The human cost is most acute in less-developed countries but is rising in the industrialized West as well. We need to describe the necessary lifestyle changes as “climate responsibility” not “climate activism.” Responsibility is not “blame.” It means recognizing our responsibility to take part in the fixes. We are in this pickle following over a century of dependence on fossil fuels, for transportation, construction and manufacturing, and industrial agriculture. We must thus assume the task of preserving a habitable planet and its fragile ecosystems for current and future generations.
Why don’t we get it? Social scientists, psychologists, and neuroscientists are increasingly researching and polling to determine why people are reluctant to act on mounting climate data and the clear implications. What makes us resistant to accumulating evidence that should change mindsets and behavior? Neuroscientists focus on our innate short-term view of dangers and threats versus our brains’ reluctance to grapple with long-term, seemingly vague problems. Then there is the difficulty in understanding complex and often changing scientific judgements, something we saw in the pandemic. Some political scientists and pollsters have focused on the polarized politics that make climate change an us-vs-them issue, while others focus on where individuals get their information – how do different demographics parse facts from misinformation?
Stop the noise. Climate activists who throw soup on artworks or disrupt sporting events are doing little more than contributing to the polarization while they get their adrenaline rushes. To be sure, they are passionate about the looming danger, but the tougher problem they avoid is changing mass consciousness.
I don’t think many who are aware climate change is a problem view themselves as accountable for the lifestyle changes and political behavior needed to put the brakes on greenhouse gas emissions. Our politicians and news organizations are loathe to point the finger back at us, but that’s the leadership challenge of going beyond the pursuit of votes or ratings. I would like to see the media take the risk of providing solution-focused coverage for the average reader/listener. Put the solutions on our shoulders, without simply vilifying the fossil fuel industry or those denying climate change on ideological grounds. Climate denial and deflection is only possible because of our consumer demands and slow recognition of the dangers. The media and policy-makers need to explain the difficulties and costs of clean energy transition while also highlighting the benefits that will accrue once we’re all in this together. Change, in even the positive use of the word, is difficult, triggers anxiety, and engenders economic and quality of life trade-offs. The consequences of climate inaction, however, will bring changes no one wants or can handle.
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