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Climate Minute: The Failure of the Term “Global Warming”
It is more like “Global Weirding”
Technically it is correct to call it “global warming.” But as a brand, this has been an abject failure. It makes it sound like a heat wave.
When I hear the temperature will be, on average, 3.6 degrees F warmer, it doesn’t sound that bad. I live in Wisconsin and we have warm summer days and cold winter days, and daily fluctuation can be 40 degrees F. An extra 3.6 degrees sounds like a little warmer day. What is the big deal?
Well, this little rise in average temperatures is already having catastrophic effects. The climate that we are accustomed to functions within a tight temperature range. Outside of that range, we get more extreme weather events, like killer floods in Pakistan and December tornados in Mississippi. The extremes will hit worse the closer one gets to the equator, where people are already more vulnerable. This is injustice on a global scale.
Drop “Global Warming” and call it “Climate Crisis.”
The cartoon is perhaps from the New Yorker. Here is a recent Climate Crisis story from them.
