Changing Words

THE TERMS "global warming", and "climate change" are both accurate, and acceptable, but not interchangeable. Global warming refers to the process which causes climate change. It is the cause, and climate change is the effect. The two are closely associated, but not the same. Global warming is far older than climate change, etymologically. The term fist appeared at least as early as 1988, when scientist James Hanson of NASA gave his now famous testimony in Congress, warning that global warming was taking place, describing the causes of it, mainly human industrial activity, and further warning that if left unchecked, it could eventually have serious consequences for the ecosystem, and ultimately, human survival. For many years global warming was the only term widely used. then, at some point after the beginning of the third millennia, the expression "climate change" became widely used, the ways words and expressions do in modern civilization; by someone with influence bringing it into existence, and gradually, through imitation, spreading it far and wide. Climate change replace global warming as the go to term primarily because it was considered more important to actually enumerate the effect, rather than the underlying cause. The change was made, in effect, for the sake of accuracy, as an improvement in descriptive verbiage, as often happens among English speaking people, and presumably, those who speak other languages as well. the transition was not without a backlash. People who insist that there is no such thing as climate change, or that even if there is human activity has nothing to do with it, and therefore it can't be helped, and therefore we shouldn't even try to change it or worry about it, but instead should simply go about our business routinely, as always, as if nothing is happening - these people seized upon the change in terminology as proof that the whole affair is nothing but a hoax. If it were real, they said, then the term "global warming" would be sufficient, and the very fact that a new term has been substituted proves conclusively that those who alleged its existence are fabricating the whole business. that this argument is dubious to the point of being laughable probably never occurs to them, many of whom still make the same argument. A similar transformation has occurred with the terms 'carbon dioxide" and "carbon". the climate change crowd, namely, scientists, used to warn us that humanity, by injecting tons of CO2 into the Earth's atmosphere, was causing global warming, leading to climate change. Then, almost overnight, said scientists started warning us about the effect o carbon on the climate, almost as if oxygen doesn't matter. this, in fact, is exactly the case. oxygen simply does not matter, and actually never has. Indeed carbon is inserted into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide, with two oxygen atoms clinging to every carbon atom to form the CO2 molecule which humans exhale from their bodies and from their factories, but since scientists knew all along that carbon is the culprit, and that oxygen merely an innocent bystander, they dropped the dioxide word from the list, justly exonerating it from all implications of blame. well, once again, out came the unscientifically educate conservatives, in full force. The media, the know nothing egg head know nothing out of touch every tower scientists, and the liberal do gooder socialist redistributors of other people's wealth were at it again, substituting one word for another, playing word games in their evil attempt to use a fabricated emergency to change the political and economic system, to send us all back to the stone age, to confiscate the wealth of the achievers, and redistribute it to the lazy impoverished masses. or, something like that. people who deny the obvious science fact of climate change are so crazy and deluded that trying to explain their point of view makes them seem crazy, which, by the way, they are. the far right climate change denial community is still at it, crazier than ever. Eighty five percent of Republicans belong to it. It is arrogant to believe than human kind has the power to change the climate, they say. Only god can do that. The Lord is coming back son, anyway, they say, so nothing else matters. the climate is always changing anyway, they say, so therefore people can't possibly be impacting it. And the piece de resistance: climate change is happening all over the solar system, on every planet, so it must have some cause, most likely an increase in solar radiation, which has nothing to do with human activity. Each of these arguments, upon cursory examination, is stark raving, crazy. the good news, if there is any, for us all, is" "climate change" is most likely the final version, since it seems completely descriptive an accurate, and will most probably not be supplanted by any new terminology, sparing us from further etymologically inspired uproar.