Advocacy

You probably have been hearing phrases like “climate crisis,” “climate emergency” or “climate justice” more often lately as people try to get across the urgent risks and consequences of climate change. The danger is real, but is using this language actually persuasive? It turns out that Americans are more familiar with – and more concerned about – climate change and global warming than they are about climate crisis, climate emergency or climate justice, according to a recent survey we conducted with a nationally representative sample of 5,137 Americans. Moreover, we found no evidence that the alternative terms increased people’s sense of urgency, willingness to support climate-friendly policies or willingness to act. The familiar terms – climate change and global warming – did at least as well, and sometimes better, than climate crisis and climate emergency in eliciting concern, perceived urgency and willingness...

As a child growing up in the early 1990s, I remember learning in school about the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels traps heat near the Earth’s surface, like the glass of a greenhouse. I imagined myself on the playground, roasting inside a humid hothouse. Fast forward 30 years, and the terms have changed. For a while, “global warming” was the go-to expression for talking about rising global temperatures and the role of human activities, particularly the use of fossil fuels. It had a spike in internet searches in 2007, probably due to former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth: A Global Warning,” which hit theaters in 2006. Near the end of the Obama administration, “climate change” became the most common term. It’s now trending in Google searches more than global warming. Both terms make the same point: Rising global temperatures have major consequences on local weather...

Global warming has increased the number of extreme weather events around the world by 400% since the 1980s. Countries know how to stop the damage from worsening: stop burning fossil fuels and shift to renewable energy, electrify transportation and industry, and reduce the carbon intensity of agriculture. But none of this is happening fast enough to avoid warming on a catastrophic scale. In my new book, “The Climate Crisis,” I lay out the mechanisms and impacts of the climate crisis and the reasons behind the lack of serious effort to combat it. One powerful reason is the influence that the fossil fuel industry, electric utilities and others with a vested interest in fossil fuels have over policymakers. But there’s another reason for this inaction that everyone has the ability to change: response skepticism – the public doesn’t believe in its own political power enough or use it. When people speak up and work together, they can spur powerful chan...