In terms of debunking myths about the environment, it seems the term and concept of ‘climate change’ predates the phrase ‘global warming’ by several decades, despite skeptics and deniers’ claims that the use of the term is part of some new conspiracy.  Don’t you just love reality checks?  Apparently a Google search turned up an article about human-induced ‘climate change’ as far back as 1937 in the Los Angeles Times.  The term ‘global warming’ didn’t really come into fashion in the 1980s when climatologist James Hansen gave testimony to Congress about rising global temperatures (and here we are still trying to get them to take action).  According to Bright Green Blog (via Treehugger):

…to describe “climate change” as a recent coinage is simply false. Much like the claims that all the scientists were worried about “global cooling” in the 1970s (they weren’t), such a description seeks to paint the dire warnings of climate scientists as nothing more than a fad. It isn’t.

So, what’s in a name?  Well, according to experts in environmental communication, quite a lot.  We need to be clear about the language we are using to discuss climate science and solutions, but people need to know that there is no deceptive, Three-card Monte name game happening.  The only swindle being attempted here is by those who choose to turn a blind eye to climate science and stand in the way of solutions to reduce our impact and prepare for a changing climate.

You gotta love this video: