The Semantics of Climate Change and Global Warming

The Semantics of Climate Change and Global Warming Timothy M. Gann (tgann@ucmerced.edu) Sierra Nevada Research Institute and Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California, Merced 5200 North Lake Rd. Merced, CA 95343 USA Teenie Matlock (tmatlock@ucmerced.edu) Sierra Nevada Research Institute and Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California, Merced 5200 North Lake Rd. Merced, CA 95343 USA Abstract with a diverse set of climate impacts, with a focus on ef- fects that have already happened (Whitmarsh, 2009). These differences have concrete effects on how people comprehend speech about climate science, and how they respond to ques- tions about it. For example, there is a correlation between outdoor temperature and people’s belief in global warming (Joireman, Barnes Truelove, & Duell, 2010), which helps drive the intuitive appeal of arguments against global warm- ing based on unseasonably cold weather (an argument that has less bite against “climate change”). Even one’s choice of gum, either a cooling mint, or a warm cinnamon flavor, can prime concepts about cooling, warming, and temperature change that influence people’s acceptance of climate science (Lewandowski, Ciarocco, & Gately, 2012). Due to the influ- ence labels can have on perception, there have even been calls to switch to other terms, such as “climate disruption,” because they may activate more favorable associates in the audience (Jaskulsky & Besel, 2013). These labels also elicit varied reactions based on the cul- tural and political orientation of their audience, who also have their own preferences for which term is most appropriate (Akerlof & Maibach, 2011; Schuldt, Konrath, & Schwarz, 2011). Villar and Krosnick (2010) even argue that at a pop- ulation level, the choice of words doesn’t have a large effect on people’s perceptions of the seriousness of the problem, but that among different subpopulations it can make a big differ- ence. This disparity between how climate change and global warming are viewed by the partisan extremes creates a sit- uation where people may be using similar words, but words that have substantially different semantics, making successful communicate difficult if not impossible (Hoffman, 2011). Political polarization of views about climate science, espe- cially in the United States, with an early report by Trumbo (1996) noting that the issue was getting increasingly politi- cized, a problem that has been getting worse as time passes (McCright & Dunlap, 2011). Over the last few decades a strong conservative resistance has emerged over past debates about the environment and to climate science (Armitage, 2005; Oreskes & Conway, 2010). Whitmarsh (2009) points out that peoples’ understanding of different environmental is- sues tend to be linked together. For the most committed skep- tics of climate change, climate science and environmentalism are inextricably bound to leftist politics in general (Hoffman, 2011). This divide appears in surveys that show both that there is a greater concordance between the scientific consen- Creating consensus and facing the challenges of climate change requires effective climate communication. However, consensus about issues relating to climate science is unlikely to happen when there isn’t a clear public consensus about which name is more appropriate, “climate change,” or “global warm- ing,” and what those terms mean. Previous research has shown that perceptions of these terms varies, depending on factors such as the audience’s political affiliation. To investigate this further, we analyzed two corpora from partisan online news using a high dimensional semantic analysis. This study found that while there is substantial semantic overlap between the terms “climate change” and “global warming,” there is less overlap in the conservative media corpus. The results also show that there was a larger proportion of conservative articles that preferred to use “global warming” exclusively, whereas progressive articles tended to use “global warming” to supple- ment “climate change.” Keywords: Climate change; global warming; semantics; cli- mate communication; high dimensional text analysis Introduction Understanding and adapting to climate change is one of the most serious issues facing our society. To overcome these challenges, it is important to learn to effective communicate about them. The magnitude of the difficulty of achieving this is highlighted by the fact that in the public’s mind there isn’t necessarily even any certainty about what to call the problem. Public preferences on the topic vary a great deal, with roughly equal numbers preferring either “climate change” or “global warming,” and a plurality stating no preference (Akerlof & Maibach, 2011). This ambivalence is often reflected in survey research and the media, where it has been assumed in the past that they are functionally equivalent, or they are presented together like “climate change / global warming” (Whitmarsh, 2009). However, “climate change” prevails in the scientific community, and is seeing more and more use in the popular media (Boykoff, 2007). Recent research, however, suggests that “climate change” and “global warming” are not semantically equivalent; they each have different connotations. Climate change is con- sidered more amorphous than global warming (Whitmarsh, 2009), and is a more neutral rendering of the concept. Global warming has more in common with terms used in other [Euro- pean] languages which focus on combative concepts. Global warming is also supposed to be more strongly associated with concepts related to temperature, the greenhouse effect, and human causes. Climate change tends to be associated