# NASA study: Only 10 years to climate-change "tipping point" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 30, 2007, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-study-only-10-years-to-climate-change-tipping-point/406082 "2007-05-30T16:20:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-study-only-10-years-to-climate-change-tipping-point/406082/61 "2007-06-08T13:04:45Z")
[QUOTE=tagos] And climate change denial. [/QUOTE] Excuse me, but it’s _global warming_, or as Bill Nye likes to say, “global **heating**.” “Climate change” was invented by the Right, since it doesn’t sound as scary as “global warming.” I’m preferential to “global boiling” myself. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-study-only-10-years-to-climate-change-tipping-point/406082/62 "2007-06-08T13:54:32Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Excuse me, but it’s _global warming_, or as Bill Nye likes to say, “global **heating**.” “Climate change” was invented by the Right, since it doesn’t sound as scary as “global warming.” I’m preferential to “global boiling” myself. [/QUOTE] Good catch. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-study-only-10-years-to-climate-change-tipping-point/406082/63 "2007-06-08T14:58:20Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Excuse me, but it’s _global warming_, or as Bill Nye likes to say, “global **heating**.” “Climate change” was invented by the Right, since it doesn’t sound as scary as “global warming.” [/QUOTE] I would disagree to some extent. I think “climate change” was originally proposed as being a more accurate term by scientists because they felt that it better captured the fact that the general heating of the atmosphere that occurs due to increasing greenhouse gases leads to lots more effects than just a general warming…e.g., changes in precipitation patterns (with both more intense extreme rainfall events and more intense droughts), possibly more intense hurricanes, … It is true that it was subsequently adopted as a preferred term by some of the Right (e.g., it was the recommended term by [Frank Luntz](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz) in his infamous memo) for the reasons that you state. [Interestingly, you will also occasionally find some on the Right who use the switch of terms as evidence that it is not a good theory…i.e., they try to claim the name “climate change” makes the theory unfalsifiable since any change in climate seen can then be attributed to it. Of course, I think this is a pretty silly argument…It is not as if scientists conduct tests of the theory on the basis of its name..] I personally am somewhat ambivalent about which term to use…and will use one or the other depending on context. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-study-only-10-years-to-climate-change-tipping-point/406082/64 "2007-06-09T20:37:01Z")
[QUOTE=tagos] There is a link directly to the report in the Independent story. [Report](http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0700609104v1) pdf link is in the right hand box. [/QUOTE] Hmmm . . . What that study actually seems to be saying is that **greenhouse gas emissions** are increasing three times as fast as previously predicted. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-study-only-10-years-to-climate-change-tipping-point/406082/65 "2007-06-09T21:05:52Z")
[QUOTE=jshore] I would disagree to some extent. I think “climate change” was originally proposed as being a more accurate term by scientists because they felt that it better captured the fact that the general heating of the atmosphere that occurs due to increasing greenhouse gases leads to lots more effects than just a general warming…e.g., changes in precipitation patterns (with both more intense extreme rainfall events and more intense droughts), possibly more intense hurricanes, … [/QUOTE] Then how about “environmental degradation” since that can be considered to encompass such things as hurricanes and the loss of coastlines due to rising sea levels? Also instead, of “greenhouse effect” we could use “Venus effect” which is scarier, since the surface is hot enough to melt lead. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-study-only-10-years-to-climate-change-tipping-point/406082/66 "2007-06-09T21:15:21Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Then how about “environmental degradation” since that can be considered to encompass such things as hurricanes and the loss of coastlines due to rising sea levels? [/QUOTE] Scientifically speaking, there is no baseline by which we can call one environment more “degraded” than another; Earth’s environment after the dinosaur-destroying asteroid was still, simply, Earth’s environment, at that time. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-study-only-10-years-to-climate-change-tipping-point/406082/67 "2007-06-09T21:36:11Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Scientifically speaking, there is no baseline by which we can call one environment more “degraded” than another; Earth’s environment after the dinosaur-destroying asteroid was still, simply, Earth’s environment, at that time. [/QUOTE] Yes, well, it technically doesn’t matter a whit to the Earth what we do to it, it’ll still be here, even if we decide to coat the surface of the Earth with plutonium. A number of scientific concepts are pretty arbitrary and human centric, if you think about it. The metric system being a perfect example. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-study-only-10-years-to-climate-change-tipping-point/406082.md?page=3)