ABSTRACT
The opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympics took tens of millions of viewers by surprise when it included a segment on global warming in the opening video montage. Sobering animated graphs showed how each year is getting hotter, and sea levels are rising. This was quite a departure from the usual Olympic opening ceremony that primarily celebrates the history and culture of the host nation; that was certainly there, but it was also about the future of Brazil and every other competing nation. It demonstrated the urgent need to get citizens across the globe to recognize the threats that climate change is bringing, and to embrace the changes needed to slow down the rise in the average temperature on earth. Against the global goodwill, international cooperation, and comradery of the Olympics, Brazil reminded everyone that the same was needed to fight climate change. Global warming, climate change, global weather weirding, planetary eco-
system shift … even how to name it could be debated. If one says global warming – an accurate description of the year after year of record higher average temperatures – then climate sceptics or deniers who challenge the accepted, overwhelming scientific consensus point to unusually cold winters in an effort to disconfirm. Hence, many use the term climate change, indicating that what we are seeing is changing weather systems and climate instability: increased heat, warming oceans, rising water levels, and increasing desertification. All these factors result from higher amounts of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide, and methane in the atmosphere, trapping more heat. Simply put, these greenhouse gases are affecting the planet’s temperature regulation, nudging it upwards. The term climate change is also preferred by sceptics and deniers who say, yes, the earth’s climate is always changing, but it is not necessarily anthropogenic, or human-caused. In contrast, activists sometimes use phrases like “global weather weirding” or “global scorching” to remind people of the unpredictability of climate change, from severe weather precipitation events to temperatures soaring above 50 degrees Celsius (122 F).1
