With the terms "Global Warming" & "Climate Change" Being Taboo for Many, Let's Call It What It Is: Pollution

Since the Industrial Revolution, climate activists and scientists have sounded the alarm on the impacts that burning fossil fuels will cause Earth's inhabitants.

Over billions of years, the "greenhouse effect" has caused both warming and cooling of the Earth's atmosphere. With each passing epoch, the cycle of warming and cooling of our planet has normalized between each Ice Age so that mankind along with many other species can adapt to such changes in temperatures over a 10,000-year or so period of time.

The Industrial Revolution (which may have begun as early as the mid- to late-18th Century) has been an atmospheric game-changer. The rise in average global temperature since such time - fast-approaching 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels - has taken a couple of centuries rather than several millennia (as has been the global norm).

The last Ice Age (which ended roughly 12,000 years ago) lasted 100,000 years give or take 5,000 to 10,000 years.

We like accurate word choices for our societal defined terms even though the focus should be on the definition behind a given defined term rather than the words (or letters) used as the descriptive moniker by someone else. If a particular shorthand means for saying something gains traction, it becomes the cultural norm. And, such word might even make it into the Merriam-Webster Inc. dictionary as a new word or as an Oxford University Press "Word of the Year" (think "rizz" as shorthand for "charisma").

However, if someone doesn't like the term or takes issue with its underlying premise, then the argument can easily become more about the choice of shorthand rather than whatever it is such term actually defines or explains.

In the 1980s, climate activists used "global warming" to describe the future impacts of increased greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, etc.) in the Earth's atmosphere caused by human activity. However, since our planet's atmosphere has warmed and cooled time and time again over billions of years due to natural changes in the atmosphere, opponents and deniers of a human-caused climate problem found it rather easy to poke holes in the term "global warming."

Then, in an effort to address the phenomenon of the potential localized cooling in certain regions while the planet's atmosphere overall warms, climate activists and scientists began using the term "climate change" in lieu of "global warming." Yet, various groups and interests take issue with this term. One argument made is the climate always has and always will change with time.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has a great idea. Let's call the cause of human-caused greenhouse gases what it is: pollution. You can read The Cool Down article - which inspired this article - that I received in my Microsoft news feed today here.

While not everyone may agree on #globalwarming or #climatechange, no one in their right mind likes pollution. All one has to do is think NIMBY.

#greenhouseeffect #ghgemissions #renewableenergy #netzero2050