Climate Change: Crisis or Not?

Climate change is a hot and confusing topic these days.

Way back when in the seventies the world was confronted with dire predictions of impending climate change resulting in a devastating ice age. In the nineties, the world was confronted with dire predictions of impending climate change resulting in devastating global warming. Then there were those scientists who disagreed with both predictions of doom. Of course, the debate continues today.

To make things even more confusing, the various opinions surrounding climate change mostly use the same terms to describe what they believe is taking place. This simply cannot stand.

Man has an inherent desire for order, which is evidenced by his love of nomenclature. We like to be able to categorize things and groups by naming them so we can better understand the things' or groups' relationship to other things or groups.

The kicker is that there is no suitable nomenclature for the ongoing climate change/global warming debate. While preparing our latest Idea to Go on climate change we realized the extent of the problem. There are clearly opposing sides of the debate, but how do you refer to either side without being inflammatory by using terms like global warming denier or environmental activist?

Our answer was to boil down the various sides of the climate change debate into two camps: "Crisis" and "Non-Crisis". Here's why:

• The debate cuts across typical conservative / liberal, right/left, or Republican / Democrat lines.
• Many scientists agree the earth is warming. Most scientists agree that humans have the ability to affect climate (think urban heat islands). Most scientists agree that globally, modern societies are producing more greenhouse gases than in previous centuries.
• The disagreements are on the consequences of things like urban heat islands, how much of an impact man is actually having in total, what else impacts climate, past temperatures of the globe, the extent of man's ability to alter the climate, man's ability to adapt to climate change, etc.

Without using inflammatory terms to describe either side, at Intellectual Takeout it comes down to the question, "Is today's climate change a crisis or not?"

How you answer the question above will determine what action, if any, you think should be taken. We have laid out the crisis and non-crisis positions in our latest Idea to Go on climate change. Also, take a look at Climate Change 101 in the library for even more information.

One last note on nomenclature: As much as we like our nomenclature, it doesn't quite do the trick since you can't call someone a "crisiserian" or "non-crisisista". So, if you have some better terms, go ahead and throw them out there in the comments section. By: Devin Foley