[Vision2020] Scitizen: Call it "climate disruption" says John P. Holdren, Director of Woods Hole Research Center

[Ted Moffett]

John P. Holdren's bio:
http://www.whrc.org/about_us/whos_who/cv/jholdren.htm

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http://scitizen.com/climate-change/words-matter-call-it-climate-disruption-says-john-p-holdren_a-13-2227.html


Words Matter: call it "climate disruption" says John P. Holdren
16 Sep, 2008 10:30 am

*I first saw John P. Holdren speak at the Chicago Humanities Festival last
year. I was very impressed by his savvy, big-picture take on the whole
climate-energy problem. In particular, I like the phrase he is advocating:
"climate disruption".*

**
I'm not sure of the origins of "Global Warming" but it was in common usage
among scientists when I entered the field in the early 90's. As Holdren
said, "warming" sounds almost benign; like a balmy day on the beach. The big
problem with this phrase is that it implies that it's all about temperature.
Precipitation is actually a bigger thing to worry about. It also implies
that its uniform ("global") when there will be large regional differences in
response and only a warming in the global-average sense. The global average
temperature is a good index for scientists to talk about with each other but
not much good for policy planning.

"Climate change" is a phrase popularized by Republican pollster Frank
Luntz<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz>who advised the Bush
administration and Republicans everywhere to use it
instead of "global warming". This phrase is incredibly wishy-washy: Its
"change": Maybe up, maybe down, maybe no big deal! Personally, I've managed
to make it an exact simile for "global warming" and so will sometimes use it
but it should really be avoided by scientists when talking to the public.

Now "climate disruption" is much better. The general pattern of climate
where you live, the extremes and patterns of precipitation, clouds,
snowfall, storms and temperature, are going to be disrupted from their
normal patterns. "Disruption" is an edgy, angry word that gets your
attention. Its probably not benign. Let's all try to use it.

Another good phrasing that Holdren uses is our three options for dealing
with climate disruption: adaptation, mitigation and suffering. We are
already doing some of each and what's up for grabs is the future mix.

You can find video of Holdren's talk at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum and a
pdf of his slides
here<http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/17661/global_climate_disruption.html>
.

Originally published on: Climate spin <http://climatespin.blogspot.com/>
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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