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“Words are always watered down,” he said, pointing to the controversy. COP26, United Nations climate conference. He said that changing the language of climate change could be harmful. For example, the use of the phrase “coal decommissioning” rather than “coal decommissioning” dilutes the meaning and intensity of the conversation about coal’s impact on the environment.
“Our future depends on getting the tone right,” said Daniel Blumstein, a professor at the UCLA Institute for the Environment and Sustainability. He added that the goal should be to eliminate as many carbon-producing energy sources as possible and replace them with carbon-free ones. “There may be a transition that requires some carbon-intensive energy sources,” Blumstein said, “where the word ‘out’ refers to a future where coal doesn’t play a major role, where the word ‘down’ implies we just want to reduce it a little bit.”
When people say that people are most likely responsible for climate change, “it’s different from saying it’s our fault,” Nye said. He said the phrases “climate change” and “global warming” are two sides of the same coin. And while talk of a warming planet may sound scary, Nye believes that “everyone should be concerned about climate change.”
expression “clean coal” for example, it can be confusing and polarizing. Popularized by coal industry groups in 2008, the term is generally understood to refer to coal power plants that capture the carbon dioxide emitted from chimneys and bury them underground to limit global warming. It’s important to note that regardless of plant technology, coal mining is a highly polluting practice that often damages streams and other waterways.
“Global warming” has gradually been replaced by “climate change,” said Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. One downside to the phrase “global warming” is that it can only be taken as rising temperatures, so other catastrophic effects may not appear to be linked, Tannen said. “Global warming,” says climate scientist and Harvard professor Marianna Linz, acknowledges the general trend towards higher temperatures, but largely neglects the local effects experienced as shifts at the extremes. These extremes may include heat, but so can drought, floods, or tornadoes.
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