Politics, Media, and Climate Change: Dissecting the term ‘Climate Change’

by Caron David (BSc. International Relations with Spanish and Economics)

After so many videos, articles, and posts on the phenomenon, how do you feel about the phrase ‘climate change’? Anxious? Hopeless? ...How about indifferent??

If the latter aligns more with how you feel, or with how your friends and family members may feel, there may be a key reason. While we are aware of the visual and auditory elements of media penetration and the literal physical experience of the phenomenon, some persons still interpret ‘climate change’ as regular and neutral, which is concerning considering that it is an ongoing crisis that determines the fate of persons (read: particularly the most vulnerable) on the planet. The answer is a mix between politics, linguistics, and media.?

Politics - the exercise of power and (oftentimes the unequal) distribution of resources. In the carefully crafted and devised game of politics, every word is value-laden. Words have the power to incite fear or control and foster radical change. The words that one uses can also galvanise support or apathy. Nonetheless, before we delve into the politics of the term, let’s look at its origin.

The term ‘Climate Change’ appeared in a 1979 National Academy of Science study on carbon dioxide where it was used to describe a long-term change in the Earth’s climate. The late 1980s marked the establishment of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an independent body of scientists tasked with reviewing and publishing evidence-based statements on the issue. The term went on to gradually replace ‘global warming’ from the ’90s onwards*. Although global warming referred to one specific phenomenon, climate change was regarded as an all-encompassing concept that covered rising sea levels, habitat loss, intensified weather systems, and both natural and anthropogenic changes. The term has grown in prominence in high-level international fora, such as the United Nations, since then.?

This umbrella term, however, has been the subject of scrutiny. For instance, political expert, Andrew Heywood contended that the term, although perhaps intended to be comprehensive and complex in nature, is vague. In his book on Global Politics, he suggests that the vagueness of the term ‘climate change’ supports the view of ‘climate skeptics’ - that the climate has always changed and there is no way to be sure that humans are doing anything wrong (although this has been debunked, multiple times). He also contends that unlike ‘global warming’ which is more ‘emotionally charged’ (and conveys that we are inhabiting a furnace that is gradually becoming hotter and hotter), the term ‘climate change’ is used a lot more by leaders and politicians due to its ‘dull’ nature that may engender little to no fear among the population. In 2001, US Republican pollster, Frank Luntz was known for advocating for the use of the term ‘climate change’ by the Bush Administration because ‘global warming’ had ‘catastrophic connotations’.

Thus, ‘Climate change’ may be perceived as an easy term to incorporate into political discourse. Manipulating and neatly tucking the phrase into speech may be the perfect way to take a moderate stance on an ongoing emergency. However, it would be remiss of us to not acknowledge the genuine concern around the issue despite the political and linguistic aspects of the term. The phrase has gained traction and concern through social media and politicians may opt to utilise the word given the electorate’s concern with the issue. Ultimately the usage of the term by those in power (or those that wish to be in power) depends on circumstances, the leader’s concern, the audience, and what stands to be gained by the usage of the term.??

It is also worth recognising that the term ‘climate change’ may bring about varying emotions for persons in the global north vs the global south, the wealthy vs the poor, and white ethnic groups vs black, brown, and indigenous groups. The way in which specific terms are utilised by politicians, particularly leaders of Western industrialised countries (which headquarter the largest oil, finance, clothing, and technology corporations), will not only affect local populations but have disastrous outcomes for emerging economies and small island developing states.

Although ‘climate change’ was crafted by researchers, a spectrum of emotive terms has emerged and catalysed fiery discourse in the public domain. These may more accurately describe the immense and immeasurable ways in which the climate emergency has affected the lives of billions of persons. Thus, the shift to what may be considered to be ‘emotive’ language may actually not be ‘alarming’ at all.??

The urgency and emotional stir caused by political discourse is not new and the potency of the language chosen by the leader is reminiscent of the careful selection of the terms ‘nuclear deterrence’, ‘nuclear weapons’, and ‘weapons of mass destruction’, – phrases which can all refer to the same thing** but may have been strategically selected depending on agenda and the audience.?

In 2019 the Guardian, a British newspaper revised its style guide noting that climate change is ‘too passive’, indicating its preference for terms like ‘climate crisis, climate emergency, and climate breakdown’. In fact, the editor-in-chief of the paper, Katharine Viner stated:?

The phrase ‘climate change’, for example, sounds rather passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity.”

The paper even went a step further to transform the terms, ‘global warming’ to ‘global heating’ and ‘climate-skeptics’ to ‘climate science deniers’.?

In the international arena world leaders, including United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, and Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley have intensified discourse on the issue with the usage of these terms. At the 2021 United Nations General Assembly, PM Mottley denounced the ‘faceless few’ who were pushing the planet towards a ‘climate catastrophe’. The continuous mention of climate change as an emergency also helps to elevate the issue from the realm of low politics (issues that are not perceived to be vital to the survival of the state) to high politics where it is considered to be a matter of state existence such as military issues.?

While researching for this piece a 2019 article by Dan Zak in the Washington Post stuck out to me. He wrote:?

The climate problem is not just scientific. It’s linguistic. If we can agree on how to talk about an issue that affects us all, maybe we can understand and fix it together.

And I could not agree more. The scrutiny surrounding the term has exposed matters in climate change communication, political communication, and eco-linguistics*** and may be one of the most neglected barriers to confronting the climate emergency, proving that what you say is just as important as how you say it.

Endnotes:

*There is also a record of the term ‘global change’ being used by scientists in the late 1980s, but it never gained traction.?

**WMD is a broad term that also covers chemical and biological weaponry.

***Eco-linguistics - very interesting stuff, really. According to a research paper, there is a tendency to relegate issues such as climate change and our natural resources to a status lesser than humans in the English language. This may have implications for the way in which we address environmental issues.?

Sources:?

Global Politics by Andrew Heywood, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

https://cambioclimatico-regatta.org/index.php/en/latest-news/item/when-global-warming-became-climate-change

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate_by_any_other_name.html

https://www.dictionary.com/e/new-words-surrounding-climate-change/#:~:text=Climate%20change%20was%20first%20known,1896%20by%20Swedish%20scientist%20Svante

https://www.ft.com/content/7b9fa9e7-1313-48da-be26-410ba235e0f1

https://www.euronews.com/green/2019/05/20/guardian-style-guide-change-climate-change

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/27/climate-change-politics-224295/

https://daily.jstor.org/how-language-and-climate-connect/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-political-rhetoric-around-climate-change-er-global-warming/

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1075547019900290

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-should-we-talk-about-whats-happening-to-our-planet/2019/08/26/d28c4bcc-b213-11e9-8f6c-7828e68cb15f_story.html