Submission + - The semantics of climate change
gollum123 writes: "A nice article on the BBC talks about the difficulty in curbing the growth of greenhouse gases because scientists and politicians are speaking a different language ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own _correspondent/6324357.stm ). Quoting the author " I have wondered long into many nights why it always ends up like this; why it is so difficult to curb the global growth in greenhouse gas emissions which now runs above 2% per year. I have been concentrating on semantics. And it has brought me to a conclusion which is so simple I cannot believe I missed it years ago. The crux of the matter, it seems to me, lies in the different ways that scientists and politicians use language. Science is nothing without precision... political language, on the other hand, is a triumph of misrepresentation. When a scientist talks about 'reducing greenhouse gas emissions' he or she means just that; actually reducing them. But what it is coming to mean in the political lexicon is something very different. The emissions will still rise, but a bit less quickly than they would have done otherwise. Having them grow less fast becomes equivalent to reducing them.""
