Climate Change or Global Warming...

Climate change. Global warming. They're the same thing, right? 

As the world warms, so the climate changes. No biggie. The terms are interchangable. Not quite.

From an environmental communication point of view, the term used has very differing implications. Because of its complex seriousness and potential impact on so many aspects of our current lifestyles, climate change has a solid following of skeptics who wish (for a variety of often selfish reasons) to discredit any relationship between human beings and climate change, let alone the fact that climate change is actually happening.

You will see these skeptics more commonly using the 'global warming' term rather than 'climate change'. It isn't hard to see why. Even though the world is warming on average, this doesn't mean that every part of the world is warming nor are the warming areas necessarily going to be warming all the time. As a result, it's easy for skeptics to quickly dismiss any evidence of climate change, claiming that it must be a false phenomenon because certain areas are not warming. 

For instance, a writer for the National Post repeatedly refers to his unusually cold and wet week at his Ontario cottage as strict evidence that climate change does not exist. Last year there were icebergs floating off the coast of New Zealand. That certainly doesn't provide much evidence of global warming.

'Climate change' on the other hand embraces the entire issue. It acknowledges that parts of the world will warm, but other parts will cool. It's considerably harder for skeptics to discredit such a term. 

To those who are more accepting of the evidence surrounding climate change, the two terms may be interchangable. But for the purpose of communicating with the public and limiting the abilities of climate change skeptics, perhaps we should put more emphasis on 'climate change' than 'global warming'.