[zzalpha]

I really liked John Oliver's take on this. The term "Climate Change" (edit: specifically as part of the public discourse on the topic) is an invention of the American right wing, in an attempt to rename "Global Warming" so as to make it sound less alarming.

On the one hand it worked. The Senate, this year, happily passed a resolution that "climate change is real and not a hoax", but of course Republican reps gleefully pointed out that, of course the climate changes, no one is disputing that...

But now that "Climate Change" is, to the public, basically just "Global Warming", Florida is now working to ban the very term their political wing invented.

The schadenfreude is strong in this one.

[treerock]

Except "climate change" was in use in scientific papers back in 1979 and defined as "a long-term change in the Earth’s climate, or of a region on Earth", including "global warming" and other changes.

I doubt the American right wing influenced Mr Charney in his naming conventions.

http://pmm.nasa.gov/education/articles/whats-name-global-war...

[zzalpha]

How language is used in studies, versus how it's used colloquially, are two different things.

The use of the term "climate change" as part of the public discourse (as opposed to scientific discourse) is as a result of a right wing PR campaign in the 1980s.

[CWuestefeld]

I don't think it was the Right that changed the terminology. In fact, it's my impression that it was the environmentalists. It was in response to the ironic questions "if it's global warming, then where is this polar vortex coming from?". The new terminology is more accurate.