CLIMATE CHANGE, LANGUAGEWISE

THE TERM climate change has been all but eliminated from the Trump administration’s nomenclature. Thus, I guess, to some this means it doesn’t exist.

As an example of this thinking, “President Trump’s War on Science,” The New York Times, September 9, 2017, says, “At the Department of Agriculture, staff members are encouraged to use words like ‘weather extremes’ in lieu of ‘climate change….’

This is definitional nonsense. Weather and climate change are distinctly different concepts: Weather is the day-to-day variation of climate, barely predictable, and subject to chaotic action. By contrast, climate change is the long-term variation of weather, a concept that can be studied, modeled, and discussed with coherence.

Alas, both are areas of (you’ll excuse the term) science. And science isn’t a Trump administration long suit.

This and the following image, both by Celia Jacobs, from The New York Times, September 9, 2017.

“At the E.P.A,” the The New York Times article continues, “a former Trump campaign assistant named John Konkus aims to eliminate the ‘double C-word….’”

This, I maintain, should not go unchallenged. Therefore, I offer here my own modest resistance of sneaking the words “climate change” into government-sounding pronouncements.

I confess, a couple of these border on the absurd. But, then again, are they any different from Trump calling climate change “a Chinese hoax”?

On transgenders in the military. “In this political climate, change of sex is not without controversy.”

Take that, Trump administration! (Or must we explain it to them?)

On challenging Alaska’s Mt. Denali. “To climb it, change to the West Buttress route at the Kahiltna Glacier.”

The West Buttress is the easiest way to climb Denali. So they say. Image from summitpost.org.

Gee, this could become a new parlor game (if anyone remembers what a “parlor” is). Things can get a bit goofy, however.

In California travel directions. “To reach Klamath, change to Route 101 and follow signs to Babe the Blue Ox.”

Babe the Blue Ox, Trees of Mystery, Klamath, California.

Footnote 1: In the early Fifties, Wife Dottie’s father, a sweet and gentle man, got into an altercation with an aggressive employee who preemptively tried to wire a Trees of Mystery bumper sticker on the family car.

Footnote 2: On November 20, 2007, Babe’s head fell off. It has since been repaired.

On advice to visiting Australian pescatarians overeating mollusks. “If you have tired of scallop, geoduck, or clam, mate, change is recommended to mackerel, monkfish, or sea bass.”

Yum. Or is it “ouch”? ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2017