March 9th, 2010

What’s Better? Climate Change OR Climate Disruption

BOSTON -

A couple years ago global warming was the hot term to describe how our earth atmosphere was getting filled up with too much CO2.

Then, the liberals/progressive or whatever they want to be called thought that  global warming might be the incorrect term, because although the temperature of the earth on average is increasing, in some places the average temperature might decrease. And to describe an ecosystem where some places have increasing temperature and other decreasing have decreasing temperature, ‘change’ is a more accurate term.

I can see why they did they did this. They wanted to be more correct and also show that this issue affects all people and in different ways.

The problem is that the word ‘change’ does not evoke strong emotions. Here, lets do a test. When you hear the world ‘change’ what imagery comes to your mind? I think of change, as in coins, people growing older, and other inert things. In my mind, it’s not really a positive or a negative thing, its just something neutral, not to be afraid of. I would argue when most people hear the word ‘change’ after ‘climate’ they don’t think the world is ending. Do you?

The reason this is important is we all know that people actions in reaction to fear can by strong and quick.

No, I’m not part of any political party. However, republicans have traditionally been good at the branding and framing of issues and democrats have not. This is yet another example of this. Instead of climate change it should be called climate disruption. In my mind, disruption makes me scared. I think of someone breaking into my house, or getting robbed, or a perfectly working engine that breaks down. To me, it brings up imagery of a system that used to work well that broken and needs to be fixed ASAP.

I’ve laid out my arguments and why I now use the word ‘climate disruption’ when talking about ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’.

What do you think will be more effective to change peoples actions: climate change or climate disruption?

Tagged climate change, climate disruption, global warming |