I just had two days of listening to right-wing radio. You can imagine my state of mind. My car is in the shop and the loaner didn’t have satellite radio and I live in an area that has only right-wing talk radio. So I listened to pass the time on my long commute.
One thing that struck me, among all the other fallacies being put forth was that the “libs” (people seriously still say that?) are changing the name of global warming over time because it gets so thoroughly debunked that the left has to change the name of it. I heard it on multiple stations from multiple radio hosts. So according to them the left started out calling it Global Cooling, then Global Warming, and now Climate Change.
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I hadn’t heard of global cooling so I looked it up on Wikipedia:
“This hypothesis had little support in the scientific community, but gained temporary popular attention due to a combination of a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s and press reports that did not accurately reflect the full scope of the scientific climate literature”
Ok, so short-lived and little support. Nothing much there. But transitioning to the phrase climate change? I remember that one. I’ve always believed that global warming is happening and that human activity is the primary cause. Heck, I learned that in elementary school in the 70s! So when people started calling it climate change, I was confused. But then I learned about the Republican strategist Frank Luntz and started reading about his influence on the Republican party and on messaging. The reality is that the transition to the term climate change came solely from the right.
A memo from Luntz to the Bush White House in 2002 about how to change the conversation about global warming into what we now call denialism. It is titled THE ENVIRONMENT: A CLEANER SAFER, HEALTHIER AMERICA. In it, Luntz specifically says to start calling it climate change and not global warming because it’s “less frightening”.
It’s time for us to start talking about “climate change” instead of global warming and “conservation” instead of preservation
Up is down, day is night….