Mount 1

Hannah Mount

Neal Lewis & Andrew Manitt

POL 115 01

4 December 2017

The Semantics of Sustainability: Global Climatic Disruption

With the dawn of the Anthropocene came the emergence of the term global

warming and the general thought amongst the human population that the only

repercussion being faced was the gradual warming of the planet. So people switch to

energy efficient options to lower carbon emissions and think the weather wont get hotter.

Unfortunately, the aftermath of human influence on earth is far greater than sweatier

summers and milder winters. Therefore, this phenomenon needs a stronger name that

encapsulates all of the possible results that may arise from pollution and ecological misuse.

It is not that this ignorance of the gravity of the situation stems from a complete

negation that the problem exists, but that the situation is not being presented properly to

the public. People see the weather reports on television and watch meteorologists make

vague claims about global warming with a primary focus on the Earth getting warmer due

to carbon emissions and that is the end of the discussion. Weather Channel climatologist,

Dr. Heidi Cullen, told Thomas Friedman in his book Hot, Flat and Crowded, Local

meteorologists are the interface between the general public and the scientific community.

People look to them and trust them, so it is critical that they make these connections

[between climate and weather], based on the science. Cullen is assigning partial

responsibility to the media, specifically meteorologists, for not utilizing their position to

educate the masses, and themselves, on the reality of the climate. A substantial part of
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educating the public is the standardization of terminology whose definitions cover the

broad spectrum of issues associated with climate change. So as John Holdren put it, a more

accurate, albeit more cumbersome, label than global warming is global climatic

disruption. (Friedman 134)

A study was conducted in the United Kingdom that analyzed peoples beliefs about

climate change and the way they perceived weather-related changes:

These findings highlight the importance of salient weather-related events

and experiences in the formation of beliefs about climate change. We link our

findings to research in judgment and decision making, and propose that

those wishing to engage with the public on the issue of climate change should

not limit their focus to heat.

We suspect that, when people are judging the extent to which climate change

is happening, personal experiences with unseasonably hot temperatures are

likely to receive the most attention. (Taylor, Bruine de Bruin, Dessai 1)

The ultimate conclusion of this study was that, more likely than not, people associate

climate change with heat, especially if it was referred to as global warming. (Taylor,

Bruine de Bruin, Dessai 2) This study provides scientific evidence that the switch should be

made from global warming to global climatic disruption. Global warming is too often

solely associated with a gradual change in temperature, when in reality there are many

more nonlinear changes at work. Nonlinear change is defined as, a change that is not based

on a simple proportional relationship between cause and effect. Therefore, such changes are

often abrupt, unexpected, and difficult to predict. (www.greenfacts.org) For example, due to an

increase in global temperature, the snowpack in the Rocky Mountains is melting earlier and for a
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longer period of time. Anthropogenic nitrogen deposition does fertilize the soil in this area, but

should the snowpack continue to melt and carry more nitrogen down the mountain then the result

is nitrogen saturation, which changes soil composition, and if it begins to invade lakes, then it

could alter the entire ecosystem. Should the lake ecosystem start to change, that could affect

fishing for not only animals but humans as well. People dont think this far ahead because all that

is heard is global warming and the connection isnt made between what the warming of the

planet might do to other ecological processes. The impression that climate change will only lead

to incremental and linear changes in ecosystems could delay or flaw actions that may be needed

to ensure ecosystem sustainability. Linear extrapolations of temporal or spatial patterns of

environmental change can lead to poor depictions of reality. (V.R. Burkett et al. 360)

Not only are these nonlinear changes currently at work, these nonlinear changes are

working together and creating positive and negative feedback loops. A negative feedback loop

tends to maintain the constant state of a system while a positive feedback loop leads to a

runaway or vicious cycle that pushes the system further and further from equilibrium.

(www.greenfacts.org) Friedman gives an example of a positive feedback loop in Hot, Flat, and

Crowded:

[There are] stretches of tundra in the Arctic, in Western Siberia, and in a smaller

area of Alaska, in which approximately 500 billion tons of carbonabout one-

third of all the carbon in the worlds soilsis trapped in frozen peat bogs. If the

permafrost in those bogs were to thaw, much of this carbon would be quickly

converted to methane, another greenhouse gas. Because methane is more potent

than CO2 a massive release of it could provide a substantial short-term kick to

climate changethe equivalent of billions of tons of CO2 . This in turn could lead
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to higher average temperatures, more ice melt, and more catastrophic and

unpredictable amplifications. (123)

As the frozen peat bogs thaw, carbon is converted to methane and as that is released,

temperatures will rise causing more ice to melt and it will continue in a cycle until a tipping

point is reached. Tipping points are shifts from one state to a new unalterable state and

cause changes to the climate far beyond temperature increases. Climate change is a much

more involved process than just the warming of the planet, humans are disrupting the

global climate, hence the proposition to begin utilizing the term global climatic disruption

rather than global warming.

The English language is constantly evolving and, more often than not, being

mutilated. So it is no surprise that when people try to discuss climate change they really

dont know what all that entails. The Scientific Alliance Newsletter from November 19,

2010 explained it best:

Global Warming became too black and white a concept to fit with

the vagaries of weather systemsClimate change then became the preferred

term, encompassing pretty much anything which might be considered

unnatural. But this was also open to criticism; after all, is climate not

intrinsically variable? Hence the recent enthusiasm for global climate

disruption, which nicely encapsulates the concept of unwanted and

unnatural change.

Simply updating the term used to describe climate change could do volumes for boosting

awareness of the issue. Before action can be taken, a discussion must be had and that
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discussion starts with the people and if everyone cant be part of the discussion, then

progress will never be made.

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Works Cited

Taylor, Andrea, et al. Climate Change Beliefs and Perceptions of Weather-Related

Changes in the United Kingdom. Risk Analysis, vol. 34, no. 11, 11 June 2014, pp.

19952004. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/risa.12234.

Friedman, Thomas L. Global Weirding - Climate Change. Hot, Flat, and Crowded:

Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America, Picador/Farrar,

Straus and Giroux, 2009, pp. 111139.

GreenFacts - Facts on Health and the Environment. GreenFacts, Morris & Chapman,

www.greenfacts.org/.

Burkett, Virginia R., et al. Nonlinear Dynamics in Ecosystem Response to Climatic

Change: Case Studies and Policy Implications. Ecological Complexity, vol. 2, no. 4,

2005, pp. 357394., doi:10.1016/j.ecocom.2005.04.010.

Scientific Alliance Newsletter - From Global Warming to Global Climate Disruption.

Scientific-Alliance.org, 19 Nov. 2010, www.scientific-alliance.org/scientific-alliance-

newsletter/global-warming-global-climate-disruption.