Hump day hilarity – the progression of climate narrative names

I had a predictable and laughable Twitter dialog today with the editor of the bought and paid for climate activist site known as “The Carbon Brief”. He was bent out of shape because I pointed out that while he thought the reason for the stepping down of Lord Lawson at The Global Warming Policy Foundation in the UK was due to the lack of traffic and interest in the organization, it [the lowered traffic] really is because of two reasons:

  1. The public is getting bored with it, possibly due to all the fear-mongering promoted by irresponsible journalists.
  2. There’s been a shift from the use of the term “global warming” to other terms, perhaps in a desperate bid to “keep it fresh”.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2009-10-01%202019-01-16&q=%22global%20warming%20policy%20foundation%22

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2009-10-01%202019-01-16&q=global%20warming

Note that “climate change” is outperforming “global warming”:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2009-10-01%202019-01-16&q=climate%20change

Perhaps the lesson to come out of this is simple; just like climate alarmists change the narrative to “stay fresh” The Global Warming Policy Foundation might change it’s name to “The Climate Change Policy Foundation” to take advantage of more search traffic.

In the “physician, heal thyself” mode of self reflection, maybe “Watts Up With Climate Change” would be a better choice too.

Interestingly, “climate crisis” has made a resurgence in 2018:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2009-10-01%202019-01-16&q=climate%20crisis

I blame journos.

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January 16, 2019 2:01 pm

“Climate Crisis” is doing well, as the name implies that is urgent, real and that only a fool would ignore it. Unfortunately people will soon notice that there is no crisis and slip away again.

R Shearer
Reply to  Nicholas William Tesdorf
January 16, 2019 2:13 pm

What do the climate criers say? Bwaaaah.

Tom
Reply to  Nicholas William Tesdorf
January 16, 2019 2:17 pm

How many of us has a lot of time to worry about something that seems to always be coming on strong in the near future but for some reason never gets here? Besides, Fargo, Ga is much more livable in January and February than Fargo, ND. But then there is a reversal in July and August.

Robert of Ottawa
Reply to  Tom
January 16, 2019 2:48 pm

Ottawa, Canada is more liveable in summer. I say bring on the warming.

Dr Deanster
Reply to  Tom
January 16, 2019 7:01 pm

Yep …. I propose we rename it “Tomorrow’s Climate” …. it’ll always be a day away.

KaliforniaKook
Reply to  Tom
January 17, 2019 5:21 pm

“but never gets here”. Like fusion power generation. When I was a kid, it was only 40 hears in the future. I’m an old man, now. It’s still 40 years in the future.
Can’t complain. When I was a kid, the world was going to be out of oil in 40 years. Now, there is no known deadline.

AWG
Reply to  Nicholas William Tesdorf
January 16, 2019 4:26 pm

Exactly. “Crisis” is a sound to trigger an emotion. These Leftists keep reaching for the nuclear button, with “Existential Crisis” soon to follow with “Extinction Event” already being tested in focus groups.

What concerns me is what happens when they run out of superlatives. I guess we will know because they will be dropping F bombs to describe their “Super F’ing Literal Existential Crisis Extinction Event” caused by Trump.

Then the Burning Times as hysterical rhetoric turns to physical violence.

Reply to  Nicholas William Tesdorf
January 16, 2019 4:39 pm

My favorite, and it’s at the top of my own personal collection, is “climate”. The most bedwetting and theft per electron from my extensive list:

Climate
Climate accord
Climate accountability
Climate Accountability Manager
Climate action
Climate action plan
Climate advocate
Climate agenda
Climate agreement
Climate ambassador
Climate ambition
Climate anxiety
Climate anxiety counseling
Climate believer
Climate blueprint
Climate budget
Climate campaign
Climate campaigners
Climate cash
Climate catastrophe
Climate challenge
Climate change action plan
Climate change helplessness
Climate change law
Climate change message
Climate change training
Climate chaos
Climate collective
Climate collectivists
Climate conference
Climate consciousness
Climate consensus
Climate coyness
Climate credits
Climate crisis
Climate danger
Climate delegate
Climate d*nier
Climate deprivation
Climate developments
Climate diplomacy
Climate disaster
Climate disasters
Climate disinformers
Climate disruption
Climate-driven migration
Climate doubter
Climate election
Climate emergency
Climate emotion
Climate engineering
Climate enthusiast
Climate envoy
Climate explainer
Climate failure
Climate fatigue
Climate fight
Climate finance
Climate Foundation
Climate future
Climate gains
Climate games
Climate genocide
Climate hawk
Climate health
Climate honesty
Climate hypocrisy
Climate indifference
Climate interference
Climate intervention
Climate justice
Climate leadership
Climate literacy
Climate loss
Climate marches
Climate marchers
Climate messaging
Climate mitigation
Climate mitigation services
Climate movement
Climate necessity
Climate opposition
Climate pact
Climate panic
Climate party line
Climate persuasion
Climate plan
Climate pledge
Climate policy
Climate preparedness
Climate problems
Climate proponents
Climate protagonists
Climate protest
Climate protesters
Climate punishment
Climate questions
Climate rally
Climate reduction
Climate refugees
Climate-related legal commitments
Climate resilience
Climate resistance
Climate risk
Climate scenarios
Climate services
Climate spending
Climate statement
Climate stress
Climate summit
Climate talks
Climate tax
Climate thwarting
Climate timeline
Climate wars
Climate weirding

nw sage
Reply to  philincalifornia
January 16, 2019 6:55 pm

I vote for ‘climate extinction’. It has all the fear factor anyone might want.

Marv
Reply to  nw sage
January 16, 2019 8:38 pm

Here’s a guy that says we humans only have ten years before we become extinct. He said this three years ago so I suppose that as of now we only have seven years left.

Bummer. I hate that.

Humans ‘don’t have 10 years’ left thanks to climate change – scientist | Newshub
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2016/11/humans-dont-have-10-years-left-thanks-to-climate-change—scientist.html

John Endicott
Reply to  Marv
January 18, 2019 10:20 am

He said this three years ago so I suppose that as of now we only have seven years left

Nah. It’s still 10 years away. It’ll still be 10 years away next year. In fact it’ll be 10 years away 10 years from now. It’s always not far away in the future but never manages to get here. funny that.

Hokey Schtick
Reply to  philincalifornia
January 16, 2019 10:13 pm

Climate porn.

Reply to  philincalifornia
January 17, 2019 8:10 am

Missed my personal favourite, Climate phobia.

Neo
Reply to  philincalifornia
January 17, 2019 9:33 am

I guess “climate cancer” never really did take off

PaulH
Reply to  Nicholas William Tesdorf
January 16, 2019 4:39 pm

It looks like a “climate identity crisis” to me. 🙂

DM
Reply to  PaulH
January 17, 2019 6:48 am

“climate fluid” is the now the preferred descriptor. Identity crisis has judgmental undertones;-}

Neo
Reply to  PaulH
January 17, 2019 9:43 am

I foresee “Toxic Climate”

tetris
January 16, 2019 2:08 pm

Anthony,

My take is that Lawson stepped down largely because he is getting on in years. And because as his brainchild, the foundation is an established and respected entity and a reference for a broad swath of influential people around the globe – mission accomplished.

climanrecon
Reply to  tetris
January 17, 2019 1:20 am
Mike H
January 16, 2019 2:13 pm

In addition to journos, I also blame politicians.

Alasdair
January 16, 2019 2:18 pm

I am waiting for it to morph into “Energy Cost Crisis”. When the proverbials will hit the wind turbines.
Hopefully history will recognise the remarkable contribution Lord Lawnson made to keeping sanity alive in the meantime.

Coeur de Lion
January 16, 2019 2:19 pm

Take a look at the GWPF advisory committee and be humble

Gary Ashe
January 16, 2019 2:21 pm

AGW is something happening everywhere you dont live.

This why the public rate it a last priority in things they consider as ”local” problems.

Its the same in every country, it isn’t happening here, but everywhere else.
So the media can mythologise as much as they wish, but if it isnt materialising and ”clearly” observable we take it for the BS it is.

AWG
Reply to  Gary Ashe
January 16, 2019 4:33 pm

Our local meteorologists for a news stations said “we don’t need any more rain this month”. Was it because of ground saturation, flooding fears or some other hazard? No, the weather putz continued, “we already have an inch more than our usual January amount”. IOW, the average amount of rain for this region is 2½” and having any more is somehow a violation. I did not know that our rainfall is rationed.

Gary Ashe
Reply to  AWG
January 16, 2019 5:48 pm

He obviosly doesnt understand what an average is.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  AWG
January 16, 2019 7:27 pm

Here in Oklahoma we like getting above average rainfall. We’ll take all we can get because we know that in a year or two it will get dry again so the more moistue the better.

Btw, this last series of thunderstorms has eliminated the slight drought we had in this area.

Glenn Vinson
Reply to  Gary Ashe
January 17, 2019 5:46 am

Alarmists merely want to spook the target population, that being western civilization. Much like the Cree Indians did with the buffalo. https://allaboutbison.com/buffalo-jumps/

January 16, 2019 2:27 pm

Lawson is old.
I’m no fan of his but won’t kick a man of his years for needing to focus on important things.
Like family and rest.

Reply to  M Courtney
January 16, 2019 4:16 pm

Lawson was Born 1932 = 87

H.R.
Reply to  saveenergy
January 16, 2019 6:01 pm

Oh… I didn’t know that, saveenergy. I suppose he should ease up on the throttle a bit.

GHowe
Reply to  H.R.
January 18, 2019 6:33 am

Or his wife should. But the queens husband still drives, I hear, at 97….

ResourceGuy
January 16, 2019 2:29 pm

I blame politicos as the origin that leads to 1) the corporate lip service and money bags, 2) the publishers and editors, and 3) the science and professional org manipulators. These are not in order but they are all top down operations.

Nik
January 16, 2019 2:32 pm

“Irresponsible journalists” is far too generous/lenient/incomplete/fuzzy.

icisil
January 16, 2019 2:32 pm

I think a climate nervous breakdown is a certainty for many.

LdB
Reply to  icisil
January 16, 2019 5:57 pm

Nope climate induced gender fluidity will be the next big outbreak in the left green types.

Gamecock
January 16, 2019 3:18 pm

Climate obesity.

Tim
Reply to  Gamecock
January 16, 2019 9:20 pm

So that’s my problem. Thanks for that 🙂

rishrac
January 16, 2019 4:01 pm

So is the snow in winter normal, that’s what AGW said, or is the normal snow in winter caused by global warming. What if it didn’t snow? Would that be the result of cooling?

John Endicott
Reply to  rishrac
January 18, 2019 10:30 am

(previous year had little snow)
Don’t you know snow will be a thing of the past, children won’t know what snow is due to global warming/climate change/whatever they’re calling it this week.
(wait, what’s that? you are getting a lot of snow this year)
ahem
Don’t you know, global warming/climate change/whatever they’re calling it this week means you get more and more snow.

What if it didn’t snow?

Doesn’t matter. global warming/climate change/whatever they’re calling it this week means just what alarmists choose it to mean—neither more nor less. Even if it requires you to believe 7 impossible things before breakfast.

Steven Fraser
January 16, 2019 4:07 pm

They’re forecasting Global Warming flurries for DFW on Saturday. Yippee!

H.R.
Reply to  Steven Fraser
January 16, 2019 6:05 pm

Finally! The DFW Tourism Bureau’s “Ski Dallas” campaign is going to pay off.

kramer
January 16, 2019 4:24 pm

On a related note, I’ve recently noticed a lot of politicians and climate ‘scientists’ saying we have to “tackle” climate change.

Latitude
Reply to  kramer
January 16, 2019 4:30 pm

…trying to butch it up

Skippy
January 16, 2019 4:27 pm

You forgot to start with “Global Cooling” and “New Ice Age” in the 70s. I remember those scares well. They pushed them really hard in the schools.

Nashville
Reply to  Skippy
January 16, 2019 4:53 pm

I remember that too, based on the data. 10 more years of data and the conclusion is now flipped 180 to warming. That is what makes me a ‘denier ‘.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Skippy
January 16, 2019 6:14 pm

I don’t remember anything about it in the US schools I went to. Graduated in 1980.

Gary Ashe
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
January 16, 2019 6:53 pm

Should have paid more attention then, we had to sit through 2 documentaries and associated bs.

Gamecock
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
January 17, 2019 1:07 pm

“If you remember the 60s, you missed the point.” – Robin Williams

John Endicott
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
January 18, 2019 10:40 am

Either you weren’t paying attention or your particular school didn’t jump on the bandwagon. (the US is a big place, and each state does things differently). We were shown a few documentaries, went to class trips to Planetariums which included in it presentations, etc. And outside of school we’d get it on TV (“In Search of… The coming Ice Age” with Leonard Nimoy being the most memorable of those) and in the newspapers (back when people still read newspapers). It was a big topic back then.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  John Endicott
January 21, 2019 6:35 pm

Nimoy I remember, but much of the “In Search Of” stuff was fringe garbage, like faith healers and such. I went to school in rural Northern Virginia. We went to planetariums occasionally, and the Smithsonian. I’m just saying it wasn’t prominent where I was, as you guys experienced.

joe
Reply to  Skippy
January 17, 2019 12:26 am

I went to high school in the 70’s. I remember the talk of global cooling and a new ice age coming. It was proven science.

Pamela Matlack-Klein
Reply to  joe
January 17, 2019 4:30 am

I was in grad school then and we all snickered at the very idea of a “new” ice age at that time. But I was also studying paleoclimates…. When I was in elementary school, we were treated to a wonderful show at the Fels Planetarium on The Coming Ice Age. This was in the late 50s and to this day I remember the narrator, supposedly on a small craft off the Florida coast, being wiped out by a humongous ice berg. That was pretty terrifying.

Graemethecat
Reply to  Skippy
January 17, 2019 2:15 am

I remember it very well. The Climatistas are desperate to persuade us the Global Cooling scare never existed.

January 16, 2019 5:15 pm

While we have politicians being desperate for every possible vote, and somehow not realising that in the real world it is not possible to please everyone. That for example every Green vote they may gain by uttering Green words, they will also lose those who have become sceptical about all of these dire warnings that never happen.

So again I say, we will have to wait until the lights start to go out, and industry move to countries who do not believe in Green fairy tales.

MJE

Eben
January 16, 2019 6:06 pm

Should have been called climate shystering long time ago

Chris Hanley
January 16, 2019 6:14 pm

To use a colloquial expression, interest in Carbon Brief ‘is no oil painting’.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-01-01 2019-01-17&geo=US&q=Carbon Brief,Global Warming Policy Foundation,WUWT,Watts Up With That
Although WUWT has visitors worldwide it is a US site, I suspect interest has dropped because it is no longer a CC™-crazed federal administration.

The Third EYE
January 16, 2019 7:31 pm

you are not going back far enough the NWO already had the Ice age scare in the 70s.

same Propaganda by the CIA and all the rest of the clowns that do any kind of history channel event…oooh in the future everything will be covered in ICE!

now it’s everything will Melt! Global Warming bla bla bla bla bla bla…

Look let’s name storms….because were the Rothschilds and we well control the weather after all. here Comes Hades the Giant Ice Storm!

BruceC
January 16, 2019 7:54 pm

Bit like here in Oz, where now every single day during summer is now called a heatwave.

David Sivyer
January 16, 2019 7:59 pm

When the tag no longer fits the reality; go for something really confusing….like “climate inversion”. That should confound the “unthinklings”.

January 16, 2019 9:44 pm

Some famous guy wrote:
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet

And that which we call a climate change
By any other term would still smell like …

StephenP
January 17, 2019 1:06 am

It is a constant feature when marketing anything that a change is made every six months or so, as the general public get bored with it otherwise.
You just have to look at the fashion industry.

Steve O
January 17, 2019 4:21 am

2050 — Climate Cycle

dennisambler
January 17, 2019 8:02 am

“The Social Simulation of the Public Perception of Weather Events and their Effect upon the Development of Belief in Anthropogenic Climate Change”

Dennis Bray and Simon Shackley, September 2004. Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

“To endorse policy change people must ‘believe’ that global warming will become a reality some time in the future.

Only the experience of positive temperature anomalies will be registered as indication of change if the issue is framed as global warming.

Both positive and negative temperature anomalies will be registered in experience as indication of change if the issue is framed as climate change.

We propose that in those countries where climate change has become the predominant popular term for the phenomenon, unseasonably cold temperatures, for example, are also interpreted to reflect climate change/global warming.”

It seems the message took hold…

Climate Change was spoken of in 1979, in the Charney Report, according to James Gustave Speth
when he was Dean of Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, speaking at the 5th National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment – Forecasting Environmental Changes, National Council for Science and the Environment, Washington, D.C. February 3, 2005

“Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Jule Charney led the NAS review, and the “Charney Report” was published in late 1979. Its findings supported those in the report I had received at CEQ. The chair of the NAS’s Climate Research Board summarized them: “The conclusions of this brief but intense investigation may be disturbing to policymakers. If carbon dioxide continues to increase, the study group finds no reason to doubt that climate changes will result and no reason to believe that these changes will be negligible
A wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late.”

Forty years on they are still saying the same failed things. Hansen and Wirth spruiked it into Global Warming in 1988 and the rest, as they say, is history.

There was also Global Weirding along the way, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/global_weirding

There is even a web site: http://www.globalweirding.is/here#explainerSection

Now that’s weird…

Neo
Reply to  dennisambler
January 17, 2019 9:40 am

Stilgar: Get back! She has the weirding way.
[to Lady Jessica]
Stilgar: Great gods, if you could do this to the strongest of us, you’re worth ten times your weight of water.

ossqss
January 17, 2019 8:22 am

I see Climatitis in our future.

January 17, 2019 10:02 am

The next logical step in this progression will be to remove the word, “climate”, altogether, instead using the phrase, the greatest existential threat of our time …, which will be shortened to the acronym, GETT

This way, any criticism can more easily be deflected, by merely shifting to another aspect of a now completely obscure, general threat.

GETT will take down humanity. GETT will be the end game.

January 17, 2019 10:07 am

“Greenhouse gases” will become known as “climate flatulence”.

January 17, 2019 12:19 pm

In keeping w/current memes — Climate Shutdown.

Louis Hunt
January 17, 2019 3:44 pm

Climate worshipers are just going in circles and hoping no one will notice. Not long ago, climate change was supposed to produce warmer winters, raise average minimum temperatures, and reduce snow fall. Now it is supposed to make winters colder in Europe and increase snowfall. So much for “settled science.” You have to wet your finger and determine what direction the wind is blowing and how cold it is before you can know what climate term to use that day. If we have a heat wave this summer, they will go back to using the term “global warming.” But when winter hits and it gets cold again, they will revert to using the term “climate change.” And if we have extreme weather anywhere in the world, it will be a “climate crisis” again.

They have the next generation convinced that extreme weather never occurred before they were born because CO2 levels were “normal” back then. So any extreme weather event today has to be the result of climate change.

Gerry
January 17, 2019 8:54 pm

The average voter has the attention span of a goldfish – keep changing the name and they’ll think it’s something new.

GHowe
January 18, 2019 6:25 am

Great list, lol. Also from last week, climate existentialism. Could also have climate mansplaining.

Gea Vox
January 21, 2019 9:21 am

YAWN! It seems global temperatures are inversely proportional to IQ amongst the comentators here.

Some have issues with science… hmmmm… no s#it Sherlock? Could it be because they have the IQ of a boiled potato? Or is because they can’t read more than 6 lines of text without feeling their brain is exploding, and need everything in cartoon format?

Or is it because they have been spoon-fed conspiracy theories that are designed to validate their ignorance over the scientific concensus of the world’s climatologists, geologists, ecologists, oceanologists, hydrologists and many more bedisdes? But, of course… scientists, what do THEY know, huh?

MWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! The deniers would be so adorable, if they weren’t DANGEROUS!

Weather-Climate conflation…. please go and cook dinner, washe the car.. anything that does not require a brain!

[Left as-written. As an example. .mod]