{"id":4215,"date":"2019-09-23T17:30:41","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T17:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euromenaenergy.com\/?p=4215"},"modified":"2019-09-23T17:30:41","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T17:30:41","slug":"when-is-change-a-crisis-why-climate-terms-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/?p=4215","title":{"rendered":"When is change a \u2018crisis\u2019? Why climate terms matter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Emma Vickers New York<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The discussion around changing weather is changing. Anodyne references to \u201cclimate change\u201d and \u201cglobal warming\u201d are being scorned by those who think it\u2019s time for more drastic talk, and action, on the environment. They prefer more urgent terminology in hopes that it translates to more urgent action.<\/p>\n

1. What new terms are part of the discussion?
\nYoung demonstrators around the world are demanding that their governments declare climate \u201cemergencies,\u201d going so far as to skip school on Fridays to hold so-called climate strikes. The UK\u2019s Guardian newspaper, which champions environmental issues, said in May that it was changing its house style to prefer \u201cclimate emergency,\u201d \u201cclimate crisis\u201d or \u201cclimate breakdown\u201d over \u201cclimate change\u201d (as well as \u201cglobal heating\u201d over \u201cglobal warming\u201d). Editor-in-chief Katharine Viner said \u201cclimate change\u201d sounds \u201crather passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Is it showing results?
\nMaybe. In a poll by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation, 38% of US adults termed climate change \u201ca crisis,\u201d while an equal number called it \u201ca major problem but not a crisis.\u201d The Democratic leadership of the US House of Representatives this year established a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, which aims, by March 2020, to publish a blueprint for keeping the gain in the Earth\u2019s temperature to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). When Democrats last held a majority in the House, in 2007, they created a similar committee but called it the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming. It was abolished when Republicans regained control of the House in 2011.<\/p>\n

3. Isn\u2019t this just semantics?
\nLiterally, yes. And it could be argued that much more tangible steps are being taken: With a changing atmosphere already upon us, use of electric cars is growing, renewable energy is already cheaper than coal in many places (and is becoming cheaper), many investors are uprooting carbon from portfolios and more and more people are eating less meat. But activists argue that stronger words can focus attention on the planet in a new way, and that rallying cries can prompt corresponding action.<\/p>\n

4. What sort of action?
\nBy mid-2019, local and national governments representing 206mn people had declared \u201cclimate emergencies,\u201d according to the Climate Emergency Declaration Petition, a campaign group. It says in most cases, that means the government commits to develop an action plan within six months. The student climate strikers who advocate use of \u201cemergency\u201d want governments to commit to switching to 100% renewable energy as soon as possible, preferably by 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Emma Vickers New York The discussion around changing weather is changing. Anodyne references to \u201cclimate change\u201d and \u201cglobal warming\u201d are being scorned by those who think it\u2019s time for more drastic…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4233,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[46,48,57,68,76,77,82,86,87,90,96,99,103,107,109,111,113,137,139,146,148,160,174,183,184,201,202,209,222,230,232,233,244,246,249,256,262,263,267,277,279,280,285,288],"class_list":["post-4215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate","tag-aramco","tag-athens","tag-baroudi","tag-carbon","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-cyprus","tag-decarbonising","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-eastmed","tag-egypt","tag-embargo","tag-emissions","tag-energy","tag-energy-peace","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-greece","tag-greenenergy","tag-international-maritime-disputes","tag-lebanon","tag-maritime-boundaries-east-mediterranean","tag-maritime-disputes","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-pollution","tag-poverty-alleviation","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-saudi","tag-solar","tag-solar-power","tag-straddling-hydrocarbons-reserves","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-turkey","tag-unclos","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}