Climate change is a plural notion that refers to the consequences of complex feedback loops linking 1) anthropogenic global warming, 2) other human-driven processes—including biodiversity loss, pollution, desertification, deforestation, species extinction, soil erosion, ocean acidification, the expansion of human populations, resource depletion, etc.—and 3) all living systems of the planet: consequences that manifest in and as a long-term change in Earth’s weather patterns.
In many contexts climate change can be used interchangeably with global warming. However, climate change is a wider notion, “including global warming and everything else that increasing greenhouse gas amounts will affect” (NASA). The open-endedness has advantages and disadvantages, depending on your needs.
The key advantage is that climate change is a “fuzzy set” term—one that encompasses a multiplicity of components with degrees of membership: some of them more central, others more removed or indirect, yet part of the larger whole nevertheless. Using “climate change” allows you to signal that while global warming is indeed “the mother of all issues” (An Inconvenient Truth), the cluster of processes and relations described under the umbrella of “climate change” are not limited to weather. They have equally serious social, political, and economic consequences for human societies, all non-human life, and the planet as a whole. This may be one reason why the United Nations body (IPCC) is called the panel on Climate Change rather than on global warming, environmental crisis, or the Anthropocene. For some, the term climate change is still too narrow. The Club of Rome, for example, prefers to use what they see as a wider and more accurate term of “Climate-Planetary Emergency.”
The disadvantage of climate change as a fuzzy term is that it can be manipulated by deniers and those who point out that climate has always been changing. Since NASA scientist James Hansen’s 1988 testimony to Congress, many scientists have preferred to use the more quantifiable term global warming. Global warming refers to a measurable rise in the global mean surface temperature of the earth caused by anthropogenic activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels. Because it’s quantifiable, “global warming” is often more useful than “climate change”—especially for the purposes of scientific reports, international agreements, and policy documents. Another objection against the term “climate change” has been that subsuming all processes under climate change is counterproductive, as many of those need to be addressed as distinct issues. This has especially been the case with biodiversity loss.
As of 2021, there is a widespread agreement that the evil twins of climate change and biodiversity loss are closely related, cannot be tackled independently, and must be solved together or not at all.
©2021 ClimateLit (Marek Oziewicz)
Related terms: global warming, Anthropocene, IPCC, climate literacy, climate change denial, carbon emissions, fossil fuels
by Barry Timms
“Love grows everywhere… / from country farm to city square. / From desert village, hot and dry, / to mountain home where eagles fly.”
“They say I couldn’t change the world; it wasn’t worth the fight. / But in my head, a small voice said … maybe you might.”
by Douglas W. Tallamy, Sarah L. Thomson
“We just have to change the way we think about plants.”
“We will never stop fighting for the living planet and for our future.”
by Abbye Sher, Carla Sinclair, Cristina Mittermeier, Nana Brew-Hammong, Sarah Parvis, Susanna Daniel
“We often hear that our planet is in trouble, but what we don’t hear enough is that we have the power to save it.”
“The wreckage of the twin dead cities was good evidence of just how slow the people of the Accelerated Age had been to accept their changing circumstances”
by Jane Lister Reis, Margie Lister Muenzer
“Everyone needs to help make our planet healthy again. The animals are counting on us!”
by Don Hall
“This place is alive. It’s a living thing! We didn’t find the heart of Pando. We found an actual heart.”
“When you take more than the land can provide, it stops giving. It can’t give. That’s what’s happened here. That’s what happens with humans.”
“The Dark was tired of hiding. Nightlights, streetlights, flashlights, and table lamps — all pushed the Dark away. Everyone was afraid of the dark. Everyone wished the Dark would leave.”
by Lamar Giles
“So many times in history it’s the youth who see the clearest and can save the day”.
by Maja Lunde
“But bees cannot be tamed. They can only be tended, receive our care.”
“One snowflake will melt on its own, but billions of them together … are powerful enough to change the face of a planet.”
by Piers Torday
“How could I be so wrong? The stag was right—we can’t trust any other humans. How can you ever trust someone who wants to eat you?”
“Home might be dying, and drier than the bone of a long dead animal, but it’s still home. I don’t want another one.”