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We are still talking about the climate the wrong way, even the activists.
“How many more natural disasters have to happen before grown-ups realize the urgency?”
That’s a quote from a teenage climate activist that appeared in today’s New York Times. Her home in Lahaina was destroyed, with her father surviving by running for his life. She was not home at the time
But what about the way she described the situation? She referred to “natural” disasters. And she knows better — she mentioned that the so-called “natural” disaster was made worse by “climate change.”
That’s a problem, too. The term “climate change.” Because these words and phrases misrepresent the crisis she — and all sane caring people — are trying to fix. Those words suggest that the climate is simply changing — but the truth is that the climate is BEING CHANGED. Human beings are willfully abusing the Earth for profit.
But those words don’t even imply how deadly those changes are — the term climate destruction would be closer, but still understate the urgency of the situation.
Let’s Choose Our Words Thoughtfully
Just as it would be wrong to refer to genocide as “ethnic cleansing,” the language we use to describe the climate crisis are terrible euphemisms, phrases that protect…
