Reframing the Climate Crisis 1: Don't Call It Global Warming

Since this is now an archival matter, I've changed the order of the three parts of this series as it initially appeared. Now it follows one, two, three, from the top down.

The climate changed dramatically last week.

While most nations solemnly bound themselves to the Kyoto Accords, scientists announced the most definitive proof yet that global heating is well underway, caused by human-sent CO2. "The debate is over," said one scientist, "at least for rational people."

It is now clearer than ever that the climate crisis has begun. Eventually it will dominate world politics for the next fifty years. It is already moving quickly to the forefront of European concerns. Two-thirds of British Parliament members polled believe it is more important than terrorism.

But though Americans are more conscious of it than politicians seem to realize, there is no national sense of urgency. Now is the time to think very carefully about how to frame the issue constructively. This is the first in a short series exploring approaches to that question.

Doubters say the world isn't heating up significantly, and even if it is, it's a transitory natural phenomenon, and the models predicting climate change because of fossil fuels are alarmist speculation.

But evidence was piled upon evidence at the American Association of Scientists annual meeting last week that global heating is having alarming effects on ocean water temperature, vegetation and wildlife, and human life.

And then the final word: a study of ocean temperatures in the last 40 years showed a rise that only greenhouse gas emissions can explain.

"We were stunned by the similarities between the observations that have been recorded at sea worldwide and the models that climatologists made," said Tim Barnett of the University of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "The debate is over, at least for rational people."

Of course, the debate is not over politically. In many ways it has not really begun. But the problem of how to move this issue up on the list of political priorities has also changed. It's gotten more complicated.

Until recently, the idea was to get people motivated to demand change that would lessen the probability that the climate crisis would cause serious problems in the future. But now we are pretty sure they are going to be serious problems in the near future, no matter what we do to try and stop them. For example, those same scientists from Scripps said last week that no matter what we do, some parts of the world---including the western U.S., China and South America---will experience water shortages and other crises over the next 20 years.

So now there are two sets of actions that need to be taken simultaneously. One is to prepare for dealing with crises that result from global heating. The other is to create change that will lessen the impact of global heating in the future---a future that few of us will see, but our children and grandchildren may.

Still, the first task remains: generating a sense of urgency, especially among Americans and their political representatives. How the issue is framed must reflect the twin nature of the necessary actions, of anticipating emergencies in the near future, and of preventive action for the farther future.

Most polls have consistently shown that around two-thirds of Americans believe in "global warming" and support efforts to address it. Why is this then not an issue every ambitious politician seizes?

I'd love to hear Al Gore answer that question, even on deep background. It's clear from past experience that leadership is essential. But because the necessary actions involve a different way of thinking, and some apparent sacrifice, it is difficult to sustain leadership when opponents can exploit yearnings for the ecological free lunch. During the energy crisis of the 1970s, President Jimmy Carter was successful in urging Americans to cut back on wasteful uses of energy, and the growth in CO2 levels actually declined for years afterwards. But high inflation and the Iran hostages added to his woes, and Republicans under Reagan were able to offer a more self-indulgent vision, which it took eight years of a Democrat in the White House to pay for.

Americans are willing to pay for what they consider an urgent threat. Violent threat countered by warfare is the easiest to understand, hence the budget-busting wars on terror and in Iraq. They are however accompanied by the illusion of no new taxes, and therefore no apparent sacrifice.

So the first task in reframing I believe is still to encourage a sense of urgency, of what someone called an "emotional consensus" on the climate crisis.

Don't Call It Global Warming

The simplest way to begin this reframing is with nomenclature. It has been driven by the vocabulary of science, which was initially appropriate, because scientists have been working on the problem since some first anticipated the effects of fossil fuels on our atmosphere back at least as far as the 1960s.

At first it was called "the Greenhouse Effect," which is the kind of metaphor scientists employ: familiar and relatively accurate to what they theorize is happening. Later the description "global warming" became the media term. More recently, "climate change" has joined or replaced this term in the media. All of these terms are reasonably descriptive, while they reflect the precision of science. But none of them expresses urgency.

Not only are these words non-threatening, they have comforting connotations.W arming conveys really nice things. It's warm and cuddly. Happiness is a warm puppy. Listen to the warm. Can I warm up that coffee? Let's give a warm welcome to...

It is counter-intuitive to think of "warming" as a bad thing. Even as a negative it is, at best, lukewarm. So who can afraid of global warming?

Nothing about it is urgent. You may urgently desire a warm coat on a cold day, but people don't feel too warm. They feel too hot. Then it's urgent.

In fact all of the terms commonly used have more good connotations than bad. "Climate change" is neutral: change can be good or bad. When you're cold or it's stormy, a change in the climate is welcome. People get on airplanes to go find climate change.

The greenhouse effect was scientifically elegant, but again it is at best abstract and definitely not scary. To most people, greenhouses are good. Flowers grow in them. Flowers are pretty. The greenhouse effect sounds like it could make the world prettier.

It is time to turn up the heat on the terminology. Instead of "climate change," it would be helpful to refer to it as THE CLIMATE CRISIS. Ross Gelbspan used it as the subtitle of his book, "The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, the Cover-up, the Prescription. Crisis projects urgency.

Gelbspan also uses "heat" rather than "warming." Don't say global warming, say GLOBAL HEATING. As a word, heating is at least potentially threatening in a way that warming isn't.

These may not be the best terms, but they seem to be the easiest, since they are variations on terms that everyone already knows. They will gain power only by repetition. They carry more of a sense of urgency, and that is a necessary precondition to other reframing. The first task is to get attention and focus.

I don't want to oversell this suggestion. It isn't a panacea. It is a possible beginning. It may turn out to be important, because politicians may try to isolate catastrophes and threats that are products of the climate crisis, and so the greater problem is not addressed with the necessary comprehensiveness and urgency. The recent scary weather in Los Angeles can be positioned as Mother Nature acting up again, or God's wrath on Hollywood, but think of the difference in response if it is said to be a result of global heating, versus global warming.

Polls show that Americans are disposed to believe that weather phenomenon they can't help but notice are products of the climate crisis. But the nomenclature gives them no sense of urgency. It's not that these small changes in nomenclature are absolutely necessary. But they could be powerful.