climate change

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Archived revision by 37.6.223.211 (talk) as of 21:59, 7 January 2020.
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English

Noun

climate change (usually uncountable, plural climate changes)

  1. Natural large-scale and long-term change in the Earth's climatic system, as brought about by ice ages.
  2. Large-scale and long-term change in the Earth's climatic system produced by global warming; anthropogenic climate change.
    • 2013 September-October, Michael Sivak, “Will AC Put a Chill on the Global Energy Supply?”, in American Scientist:
      Nevertheless, it is clear that the global energy demand for air-conditioning will grow substantially as nations become more affluent, with the consequences of climate change potentially accelerating the demand.
    • 2019 October, Roger Ford, “WCP award - victory for DfT reactionaries”, in Modern Railways, page 31:
      If you are serious about climate change a rolling programme of electrification is the only rational policy.

Usage notes

  • May be treated (in the sense “anthropogenic climate change”) as a synonym of global warming in informal contexts, particularly in regions where climate science is contested by political actors. This conflation is not widespread in scientific contexts, where it may be regarded as incorrect.
  • Some newspapers and journalists now prefer the terms climate crisis, climate emergency, or climate breakdown.[1]

Translations

Further reading

References

  1. ^ Damian Carrington (2019 May 17) “Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment”, in The Guardian‎[1]

Anagrams

Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=climate_change&oldid=58312503"