What’s in a name - climate change or climate crisis?
New Zealand Climate Crisis: Blog 1
[1296 words - a 6 minute read]
Naming things is an important part of human connection and communication. The English language may have up to a million words, many of which are used to identify things. Naming can have a number of purposes. They include to organise our world by distinguishing things from each other, to enhance memory, to help create a sense of control, to help us think and to create a narrative. Not all languages name the same things nor is naming an exclusively human trait.
The cause of the “climate change” problem we face - an increasing concentration of ‘greenhouse gases’ [GHG] in the atmosphere causing the surface of the Earth to heat up - was first identified in the early nineteenth century, but most work on the problem has taken place within the last four decades or so.
The use of the terms “global warming” and “climate change” became common in the 1980’s. Both were used to describe the phenomenon of global warming and the effects of this on earth’s climate system when, technically, “climate change” was the correct term to span both of these issues.
There is no doubt that, for some period of time since, the term “climate change” was the right name for the phenomenon that had been identified and was being worked on. The term encompassed the nature of the problem and its effects, and science had identified the two solutions; reduce GHG emissions and take measures to adapt to future impacts that were already “baked in” owing to the already elevated GHG levels. [Carbon capture and storage as a potential treatment was a later development.]
Circumstances did not demand either direct citizen engagement or urgent actions by governments or anyone else so the term was pitched at the right emotional level. All that needed to be done was for nations, and particularly for those classified as “developed countries”, including New Zealand, to implement the identified solutions.
Unfortunately, while many countries have taken the mitigation message on board especially in the last ten years, the trajectory of emission reductions promised has not been matched by reality. Worse, this state of affairs persists, in large part, to the present day with no sign that emissions, and especially the extraction and use of fossil fuels globally is reducing significantly, let alone at the necessary rate to avoid major impacts. As a consequence, GHG emissions are failing to trend downwards, with the amount of hot air generated by governments talking about what they are going to do, as distinct from what they actually do, a significant contributor (even if only figuratively) to the magnitude of the problem we now face.
The internationally agreed [‘Paris Agreement’] global limit temperature target of 1.5C above pre-industrial times is, (given the current trajectory of GHG concentrations and the lack of any realistic reduction plan in the necessary timeframe) unattainable without some degree of ”overshoot” and the consequential issues around this, and the same fate may also befall the 2C back-up target.
The world now heads into unknown territory, modern humans having not been in existence the last time the Earth was exposed to a comparable GHG level and planet warming event. [That occasion was 3-5 million years ago, when the temperature was 2-3°C warmer and the sea level was 10-20 meters higher than now.]
It is worth remembering here that two thirds of New Zealanders live within 5 km of the coast so will be affected by future, climate change driven, sea level rise. Your local authority and, likely, your insurance company and your bank, will let you know if you are impacted by this and how much your climate change related premium will increase by - if they are willing to take on the risk.
Worse, as bad the known impacts will be for us, they will be worse for many other countries, especially those that that are less developed. Their peoples, despite not them not having contributed significantly to the climate change problem, will be most affected by many of the impacts, such as floods, drought and, especially in the Pacific, sea level rise.
Pacific peoples are faced - as a result of impacts that include salination and a rise in ocean temperatures and sea level - with the loss of both their ancestral land and the bounty from the sea that has fed them and their families for generations. That they do not have access to any insurance backstop measures (that act to cushion some of the climate change sourced blows in developed countries) only adds insult to injury.
Further, as bad as this is, the problems from climate change in future could be worse still. This is because the rate of the global temperature increase we are now seeing is unprecedented and unmatched - even in pre-history - and the potential consequences of this situation are not yet fully understood.
This brings us to the appropriateness of continuing to use “climate change” as the name for the current situation. Calling the massive problem that we and our descendants now face “climate change” while technically true, does the severity of the challenge we are facing a great disservice, because the phrase is innocuous and so minimises the hazards posed. The term “climate change” does not convey the multi-generational, self-inflicted cause, the wide-ranging scope of the problem and its impacts nor that we must work both individually and collectively to fix it.
Climate change is a collection of physical processes that, in this instance, we have set running. It can no more have regard for our wants and needs than, in the words of a popular phrase from some years ago, a fish needs (or wants - my addition) a bicycle.
Most importantly, in terms of engendering and sustaining the range of actions that are now necessary, “climate change” is an emotion-free phrase. It therefore conveys nothing of the myriad ways in which its impacts, in future, will be felt viscerally rather than (as now for most people in New Zealand) vicariously. Lives will be disrupted, houses and business premises damaged or destroyed and communities, even some countries, though very likely not New Zealand, rendered uninhabitable, later this century and beyond if we do not act now.
It should be named – not shamed because we are the ones that should be (a)shamed for letting the issue getting as big as it has become – and the problem renamed as “climate crisis” to reflect the magnitude and urgency of action required to address the problem we have to deal with.
There is a risk that the use of the term “climate crisis” will be criticized as being an inappropriate or hysterical demonizing of something that is not yet an issue for many people. My response to this is that not framing the problem in an emotive way has failed, over at least the past decade, to deliver the needed actions and we now find ourselves having to take much stronger action and this includes using the power of naming.
In summary the “climate crisis” term better reflects the situation we are now faced with than “climate change” as it better emphasizes the need for urgent action (by our government and by all of us who are in a position to do something) to address the problem than does “climate change.”
It is important to remember that, even as a climate crisis, the problem is solvable but requires us to act now. Future articles will explore other topical climate change issues including why we should act and identify some things that we can do to contribute to the solution.
I will therefore use “climate crisis” in the titles of much of the content I develop but will continue to use climate change in the text in most cases, recognizing the more common usage.
