By either name, it’s bad news
The scientists had it right all along. The world is warming. For half a century, consensus among climatologists has been that rising levels of heat-trapping CO2 would result in rising temperatures.
They came up with an apt analogy for this: greenhouse effect: Your car is way hotter than the outside air when you park it at Fashion Fair in July at noon and come back a couple hours later. So simple. Global warming.
Then Frank Luntz, a Republican political strategist and global warming skeptic, used focus group results to determine that the term “climate change” is less frightening than “global warming.” Makes the future seem nicer – business almost as usual.
Well, as a July 29 Bee article indicates, that future is not-so-nice: “Four outdoor events in Fresno and Clovis are the first casualties of the triple-digit heat wave and dirty air that residents will bear through the weekend. The cancellations [due to the Soberanes fire, which is big and only getting bigger] echo the basic message of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District and meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Hanford: Don’t go outside unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Time to get serious about global whatchamacallit.
Bruce Ratcliffe, Fresno
This story was originally published August 3, 2016 at 12:59 PM with the headline "By either name, it’s bad news."