Climate crisis
Climate crisis is a term describing global warming and climate change, and their impacts. This term and the term climate emergency have been used to describe the threat of global warming to humanity and the planet, and to urge aggressive climate change mitigation and "transformational" adaptation.[2][3][4][5] In the scientific journal BioScience, a January 2020 article, endorsed by over 11,000 scientists worldwide, stated that "the climate crisis has arrived" and that an "immense increase of scale in endeavors to conserve our biosphere is needed to avoid untold suffering due to the climate crisis."[6][7]
This article is about the term or expression, "Climate crisis". For substantive discussion of the current warming of the Earth's climate system, see Climate change. For formal recognition of climate change as a crisis or emergency, see Climate emergency declaration. For climate communication in general, see Climate communication.
The term is applied by those who "believe it evokes the gravity of the threats the planet faces from continued greenhouse gas emissions and can help spur the kind of political willpower that has long been missing from climate advocacy".[2] They believe that, much as global warming drew out more emotional engagement and support for action than climate change,[2][8][9] calling climate change a crisis could have an even stronger impact.[2]
A study has shown that the term invokes a strong emotional response in conveying a sense of urgency;[10] some caution that this response may be counter-productive,[11] and may cause a backlash effect due to perceptions of alarmist exaggeration.[12][13]
Definitions[edit]
In the context of climate change, the term crisis is used for "a crucial or decisive point or situation that could lead to a tipping point."[5] It is a situation with an "unprecedented circumstance."[5]
A similar definition states that crisis in this context means "a turning point or a condition of instability or danger," and implies that "action needs to be taken now or else the consequences will be disastrous."[22]
Another definition talks more about the effects of climate change and defines climate crisis as "the various negative effects that unmitigated climate change is causing or threatening to cause on our planet, especially where these effects have a direct impact on humanity."[13]
Research has shown that what a phenomenon is called, or how it is framed, "has a tremendous effect on how audiences come to perceive that phenomenon"[12] and "can have a profound impact on the audience's reaction".[45]
Climate change and its actual and hypothetical effects are usually described in terms of climate risks in scientific and practitioner literature. When it comes to 'dangerous' risks, there are many related terms other than climate crisis. (Following dates aren't necessarily the first use of such terms.)
In addition to climate crisis, various other terms have been investigated for their effects on audiences, including global warming, climate change, and climatic disruption,[12] as well as environmental destruction, weather destabilization, and environmental collapse.[10]
In 2022, New York Times journalist Amanda Hess noted how "end of the world" characterizations of the future, such as climate apocalypse, were often used to refer to the current climate crisis, the characterization spreading from "the ironized hellscape of the internet" to books and film.[69]