The Guardian has updated its style guide to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world.

Instead of “climate change” the preferred terms are “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” and “global heating” is favoured over “global warming”, although the original terms are not banned.

The word “crisis” does not appear in the thousands of pages of the IPCC reports. There is one reference to “Emergency” and that is in reference to “Emergency Medical Services.

The terms “crisis” and “emergency” are an invention of the media and the language of propagandists. Search online for the term “crisis” and you find everything is now labeled as a “crisis”. It’s the go to word when you want to engage an emotional response.

“We want to ensure that we are being scientifically precise, while also communicating clearly with readers on this very important issue,” said the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner. “The phrase ‘climate change’, for example, sounds rather passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity.”

Rather than report on the facts and logical basis for climate concerns, The Guardian chose to select scary words rather than the actual term used by scientists – that is, “climate change”.

See our other posts on “Climate Communications”.

Increasingly hysterical pseudo news using methods of propaganda is not the way to effectively communicate concerns over future climate. Instead, this strategy is turning people off.

The obvious solution might be to stick with the facts and logical arguments.

Source: Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment | Environment | The Guardian