Sunday 8 September 2024

Global Warming And Climate Change

When i first became aware of the Environmental issues back in the early 80's it was always referred to as Climate Change but over time the phrase Global Warming has become to mean the same thing but they are not really the same thing as Climate Change refers to the increasing changes in the climate over a period of time which includes extreme weather due to precipitation, wind and temperatures which includes Global Warming so the warming globe is one of the Climatic changes.
I have had to explain more times than i would have assumed necessary what the difference is between 'weather' and 'climate' so it shows that large parts of the public have to be educated on these matters, those that don't believe it is a Chinese ploy to make the West less profitable as one dollard said not that long ago.
Greta Thunberg considered that the term Climate Change didn’t capture enough of the dire dangers and suggested climate breakdown, climate crisis, climate emergency, ecological breakdown, ecological crisis or even ecological emergency and i am hearing Climate Crisis and Global Heating used more now although they do still seem to conflate the two things.
The idea is that using more dramatic language generates more concern among the public but a study in the journal Climatic Change found that when it surveyed 5,000 people, the old terms 'climate change' and 'Global Warming' made people feel more concerned than the 'Climate crisis' and 'Climate Emergency' framing.
'The thing is, a lot of people are already concerned about climate change, so worrying about the word for it is probably not the key way forward to motivate people' said the lead researcher which is backed up by another survey which also found that whatever it was called didn't affect people’s emotional response to climate change.
They deem that information about climate consequences and solutions would be more effective than relying on specific terminology but i always go with 'The greatest threat to our very existence' which i have been told scares people and i reply, good, so it should because it is a bloody scary situation we stupidly find ourselves in.

1 comment:

Not really a blog said...

The alarmists like greta don't motivate people to act by spewing extreme words. You see, normal people don't trust alarmists because alarmists are dominated by their emotions.

Emotional people like alarmists do three primarily stupid things:
1.) embrace an accelerated pace of change that defies the reality of nature and/or society thus leading them to say stupid things like "if we don't change by 2010, the world will end".
2.) ignore normal human adaptation to a constantly changing existence.
3.) propose changes that defy human nature like advocating for marxist economics; advocating for more government control aka less individual liberty; or advocating for delayed gratification (in this case suffering today for the benefit of greta's grandchildren).

People consider such alarmists to be idiots.

Now, there is a factor to consider and that is the "knee of the curve" or the "hockey stick" effect where we are on the cusp of accumulated change that will shift from linear to hyperbolic growth. The problem with this is that very few people are able to identify this condition. Like the alarmists predicting a global cooling by the year 2000; al gore predicting the fall of civilization by 2012; and now greta predicting the destruction of the Earth.

News Flash - the people of India, Africa, and South America are not going to stop using cheap energy (coal and oil) to bring themselves out of poverty (the Prime Minister of India said as much recently). And, the US and europe cannot cut CO2 enough to undo the increase in India alone, much less the collective increase of India, Africa, and South America...

Reality for greta and her followers...