“Global warming” is the accurate term. So that is what they called it. Science is not now nor has it ever been about branding and populism. The world is, as a whole, becoming warmer and that is leading to the complete destabilization of climate systems across the globe. But the fact is that it is incredibly hard to predict the total outcome of global warming and climate change. So making predictions becomes a very dangerous game. And I would like to add that when they saw that the phrase “global warming” was not getting enough attention they changed it to “climate change” to try to be more accurate in a way that people would understand better (see the dipshit congressman who brought a snowball on to the Congressional floor to “prove that global warming was fake”). But then that backfired too because climate change doesn’t sound quite so dangerous. So most people felt completely comfortable in totally ignoring it.

There’s also the problem of the consequences of global warming and climate change are future problems that people don’t believe they have to worry about right now. There’s a very real “fix it in the future” attitude that has become prevalent in society. And the problem with that is, of course, we can’t fix it in the future. Because once the destabilization of the global climate system starts, there is virtually nothing we can do to stop it. We may be able to mitigate some of the effects. But not the long-term destruction of the environment that we have become so accustomed to living in.