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Yeah, global warming WAS an accurate term.
Media flacks hired by ultra-wealthy oil profiteers decided to ditch the phrase “global warming” and substitute the innocuous term “climate change.” Although neither term expresses the severity or urgency of the crisis we are facing (or more accurately, evading), “global warming” turns out to be quite accurate, albeit understated.
We were told that global warming was imprecise, failing to capture the subtlety of the phenomenon. I think any sensible person today would recognize that the planet is being boiled and burned and that there is nothing subtle about it.
I want you to look at the picture accompanying this article. This is a businessman, in a suit with a red tie, looking confidently ahead as the entire planet Earth burns behind him. He set the blaze and continues throwing more (fossil) fuel on it. He doesn’t care. He thinks he’s brilliant and successful.
He expects us to recognize his accomplishments, to see him as a winner, as a very accomplished person.
He’s an ass, and we are asses for allowing him to get away with it. We are asses every day we don’t call him out, every time we “debate” or discuss this with him, as if it’s some theoretical subject on which reasonable people could disagree.