Climate deniers and climate skeptics often cite extreme weather events that involve cold weather, snow, ice and etc., as evidence that man-induced global warming is a myth. This group of people attempts to confuse or muddy an issue that an overwhelming percentage of climate scientists, and, increasingly, the public, agree is happening and one that requires our urgent attention to prevent the worst climate outcomes from befalling our world. The average person living in the United States is beginning to understand that they can no longer continue to live without regard for the environment and sustainable practices at home, work and school. But while there is a growing chorus of voices calling for our government and those of the world to act in very bold and urgent ways, we still seem to fall into that all too human response of denial: “I’m just one person, what good can I do?” or “It’s hopeless, the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide and methane are not doing their part to remedy this dire situation.”
So, how can the severity of this situation be understood and likewise acted upon by our global community?
Previously, discussion concerning the on-going warming of our planet was occurring in groups that were unable to break into the mainstream discourse. Those climate scientists, environmentalists, and others working or studying the rapidly increasing rise in our global greenhouse gas emissions and with it the global temperature, have been heard with the signing of the Paris Agreement in November 2016.
Since then, there seems to have been a huge uptick in news articles acknowledging climate change and the threat it poses to virtually every part of our lives, including our safety and security. In addition to the increased number of articles, there are also more books being written, and classes being taught at all levels, including non-credit courses for the general public. With our heightened awareness comes our acknowledgement that this multifaceted problem requires an alarming level of urgency to act.
This increased focus on climate change is positive, and while there seems to be an increased willingness to talk about and recognize that climate change is happening, are we doing the best we can to connect climate change to the actual events and impacts of such events that we are already experiencing to provoke action? What is hindering the potential for urgent action, I believe, is the lack of a vocabulary around climate change events that prevents the general public from linking a specific event with our rampant greenhouse gas overuse. I live in a city that was hit by two “100-year floods” in two years. The magnitude of each brought millions of dollars in damage and loss of life. I still find myself reflecting on these floods with an aloofness that belies reality. My internal narrative of these floods as “100-year floods” gives me the opportunity to deny the gravity of the implications of climate change, which is that we could have these types of floods at any time because of the inherent uncertainty of climate change.
So, what can we do? We can create a new lexicon, so that when we talk about the horrible wildfires in California in 2018, for example, we call them, perhaps, “super-fires” and formalize the link between the fires and climate change to indicate that they are not the wildfires of the past, but part of the “new normal” that we are all beginning to experience. What about floods? What about the changes in agriculture and farming that will cause mass migrations? If we continue to talk about these events in a way that does not link them to climate change every time and that does not use universally agreed upon wording, we are doing ourselves and our planet a disservice. Because unless we find a word or set of words that means, “this flood or drought or mass migration is brought about by climate change” we will continue to give our human nature room for denial and not act expediently.
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