climate emergency

The Guardian  (UK) has adopted as its house style the term climate emergency in preference to climate change, and global heating rather than global warming.  Warming sounds quite pleasant, whereas heating is clearly bad.  An emergency is much more alarming than a simple change which could be good, could be bad.

 I was surprised that a newspaper would lead the charge in language change like this, and noted that the Guardian Australia did not follow. It turns out that the UK Guardian was responding to quite a strong grassroots movement to declare a climate emergency that involved global heating. So they were following rather than leading. The change is filtering through to Australia also, and has picked up pace quickly.

 When language intervention is done for political or social reasons it causes the most uproar.  Not that I am saying that people shouldn’t do it. It can be a powerful weapon in a good cause, but it will galvanise the opposition into attack, and revive all the arguments about political correctness.  In the meantime climate emergency is gaining traction with climate crisis hot on its heels.