A panel discussion at the AAAS meeting on climate coverage by the media drew a lot of interest in the blogosphere, most notably around the nettlesome question of nomenclature. John P. Holdren, director of the center on science and technology policy at Harvard, made a case against the continued use of “global warming” to describe the future we face. Neither global nor warming convey the idea of seriously damaging threat or the possibility of abrupt change. In his blog at DotEarth, the New York Times’ Andrew Revkin, another panelist, quotes Holden as lamenting, “We’ve been almost anesthetized by the term.” Holdren voted for the phrase “global climate disruption.”
Warming, change, disruption, global—nothing captures in the popular mind the potential for danger or damage that could be on the horizon. At least, it seems so to this sub-tracker. Warming is slow and benign. Change and disruption are vague. Global is a place where nobody lives. Maybe the problem stems from the fact that climate scientists who understand the causes of change of global mean temperatures can’t put their fingers—with much detail—on just how these changes effect regional climate, where people live. Or maybe we just need the greenhouse gas equivalent of “Ozone Hole.”
Discover’s Blog and Nature had other takes on the panel. (LATE ADDITION – Of particular note is at Curtis Brainard‘s The Observatory blogsite by the Columbia Journalism Review – CP)
-JDC
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