I’ve mentioned this in passing before, but now I really want to emphasize it: We should refer to “climate disruption” as opposed to any other phraseology. It is the only phrase which evokes the proper mental imagery, unless someone can think of anything better.

The phrase “climate change” is empty; it doesn’t mean anything. When the hell does the climate not change? Why would change necessarily be bad? Saying “climate change” manages to communicate nothing useful about the actual phenomenon. It implies that the climate is some fixed entity, which it isn’t. Furthmore, adding “global” in front of it is unnecessary; that’s mostly (but not completely) redundant.

Meanwhile, “global warming” sounds like a pretty fun thing. Who doesn’t want things a little warmer? I’m wearing a jacket right now. When you tell people the temperature is going to rise, they don’t think anything of it. What can a few degrees possibly do? Then, when they see that the temperature varies so much in different areas, they discount any possibility of warming at all. They can’t worry about warming in and of itself.

That’s why I prefer “climate disruption.” When I think of climate disruption, I think about the ways humans have devastated other ecosystems. We have dead zones in our seas. We’ve deforested and over-fished. We’ve ruined the environment in many areas and now we’re doing the same thing to our atmosphere. And devastating the atmosphere isn’t something that stays in a local area — it affects all of us.

The problem with the climate isn’t change or warming, exactly, it’s the disruption that is necessarily coupled with those. We’re pumping obscene amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. I mean, come on, it should be common sense at this point. We keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and we’re going to mess up the atmosphere the same way we’ve messed up other things. We’re going to “disrupt” the climate, so to speak.

“Climate disruption” obviously isn’t perfect. The diction is still somewhat pretentious. However, I think a bit of pretentiousness in this case isn’t all bad since we still want things to sound somewhat scientific. Moreover, the phrase makes things sound bad without being alarmist. Overall, I think it’s much better than what we’re using now.

What I want to do is convince other people (preferably famous, but I need you too!) to use “climate disruption.” Please use “climate disruption” from now on and convince everyone you know to use it. Words matter.

EDIT: I should devise a pithier version of this entry when I e-mail others.