Euphemistic language is often an indicator of denial, avoidance and sublimated shame – it is a way to talk so nobody can hear you – something to do while avoiding responsibility.
As a former professional fund-raiser I pivoted a ten year career around the word ‘support’. This can mean anything people want – donations in support of ‘support’ can (quietly) fund the salaries and bills that donors are notoriously reluctant to fund.
To avoid the uncomfortable (yet widely known) truth that small charities unavoidably spend the majority of their donations on salaries, rent and electricity bills – fundraisers wilfully mislead donors who in turn are happy to be misled – life goes on and everybody gets paid.
To create (and decode) euphemisms one must understand the rules of the game – primarily what uncomfortable truth is to be dodged, for whom and why. Anybody whose salary and position depends on words will have a little tool kit of phrases that avoid specifics.
Politicians love talking about ‘change’ and voters love to vote for ‘change’ – this is how elections work. Politicians can appear radical and voters can make demands without consideration of costs, practicality or others. Once the election is over ‘change’ is stowed carefully away where it can do nobody any harm (or good)…ready to be dusted off at the next election.
Human awareness of ‘climate change’ has been growing since 1896.
A first newspaper article appeared in 1912. The United Nations has been holding annual conferences about ‘climate change’ since 1995 – and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) first warned (in carefully couched language) of catastrophic global warming in 2001.
Scientific and public concern about ‘climate change’ has grown steadily during the last 30 years… alongside this angst another human activity has also increased sharply – green house gas emissions – reaching a record high in 2019 of approximately 43.1 billion tonnes.
The link between concern and action is clearly broken here and what allows it to stay broken is the language we use to discuss it.
If you learnt that somebody had smashed up some gravestones in a local church yard, what would you call it? Vandalism? A straightforward word that conveys material and moral information – I bet you wouldn’t call it ‘graveyard change’.
Why do we call pumping ungodly amounts of polluting gases into our own atmosphere ‘climate change’ when it really ought to be called ‘climate vandalism’? Imagine if the next round of interminable and fruitless international ‘talks’ about ‘climate change’ were given an accurate name and slogan:
‘COP 25 ‘Evading Responsibility for Climate Vandalism’
Facilitating global ecocide through creative inertia since 1995!
‘Climate change’ is not a discrete process and should not be treated as one – that we do so is no accident. Having individual discussions about climate change, bio-diversity loss, plastic pollution, ocean acidification, habitat loss, soil erosion etc disguises their common root – bad human behaviour.
‘Climate Change’ is not something that is happening to us like an asteroid strike or a volcano, it is an ongoing act of wanton human vandalism – just one of many self destructive behaviors that flow from a pandemic moral malaise. By placing an almost singular focus on lots of seemingly unconnected technical discussions we hide from ourselves the systemic moral crisis that connects them all.
‘Climate change’ is the writing on the wall. Nature has two simple messages for us – HUMAN CIVILISATION WILL DIE SOON and IT’S YOUR OWN FAULT. Elaborate sophistication and enormous collective energy is being deployed to help us all to avoid this information.
Discussing ‘Climate change’ is less morally vexatious than admitting that we are betraying posterity via climate vandalism and collective suicide; that’s why this ineffectual phrase has become culturally acceptable.
Jargon begets jargon and thus the chat flows smoothly from ‘climate change’ to ‘climate action’ to ‘climate crisis’. People mutter with little enthusiasm or conviction about ‘transition fuels’, ‘energy mixes’, ‘clean coal’ and ‘building local resilience’.
Morally neutral language, soporific jargon, scapegoating and fantastical solutions: these incredibly are building the zeitgeist for the end of us – perhaps a fitting end for such a morally deluded species?
Our collective moral failings lie behind all ecological emergencies. The everyday moral praxis of billions (whether embraced or endured) invokes the pathological habits that deliver ‘climate change’ and ‘biodiversity loss’.
While this truth is endlessly dodged and re-branded there is no hope of saving our species.
Even if political expediency and whizzy green technology staves off disaster for a couple of decades, the underlying moral crisis will (if left unexamined) ultimately destroy any short-term truce with nature.
I don’t know what else to do apart from challenge the language and to resist the bizarre mix of apathy, complacency and indifference that pervades these last few ticks of the doomsday clock.
So onward we go – next up will be #2 ‘Biodiversity Loss’.
Since 2013 I have worked between 4-6 hours a day on this Ad-Free site: trying to give a voice to those without the power or agency to speak out for themselves and uncovering truths that well paid journalists in the corporate media dare not utter.
I am a home schooling parent on a low income – paying for the domain, web hosting and security entirely out of my own pocket.
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Thank you in solidarity with all our readers. John Lynch, Editor.
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