Commentary: How 'global warming' became 'climate change' and the danger of euphemisms

Chicago Tribune ^ | February 20, 2019 | by Victor Davis Hanson

[Oldeconomybuyer]

The reinvention of vocabulary can often be more effective than any social protest movement. Malarial swamps can become healthy “wetlands.” Fetid “dumps” are often rebranded as green “landfills.”

Global warming was once a worry about too much heat. It implied that man-made carbon emissions had so warmed the planet that life as we knew it would soon be imperiled without radical changes in consumer lifestyles.

Yet in the last 30 years, record cold spells, inordinate snow levels and devastating rains have been common. How to square that circle?

Substitute “climate change” for global warming. Presto! Any radical change in weather could be perceived as symptomatic of too much climate-changing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Suddenly, blizzards, deluges and subzero temperatures meant that typically unpredictable weather was “haywire” because of affluent Westernized lifestyles.

Beware of euphemisms. Radical changes in vocabulary are usually admissions that reality is unwelcome or indefensible.

[Vigilanteman]

Good one. I’d be interested in any coherent replies. Probably none? Then the most humorous replies . . .

[rightwingcrazy]

I have no problem with the term “landfill” if it refers to something whose purpose is to fill land. Otherwise, it may be just a dump.

[eyeamok]

It was Global Cooling in the 70’s when we were on the cusp of the next Ice Age.

[CedarDave]

Ironically, those folks back in the 80’s may be proven right if respected solar scientists are correct that the sun will enter into a deep and prolonged decline in solar radiation that will result in cooler temperatures worldwide that will negate any temperature increases supposedly due to man-made global warming.