The term “global warming” is inaccurate and created a global knowledge debt around the real mechanism for climate change as far back as 2007. The same, and possibly greater problems, concern our use of the term “biodiversity” and its relationship to animal conservation. All these concepts have to be understood correctly in order to make sense. If we don’t, we leave ourselves open to criticism and slow down acceptance of the principles needed to reverse catastrophic impacts on human life support.

Global warming was first mentioned in about 1989 and was most popular as a search term on Google in about 2007. This was a year after Al Gore published “An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It” (see Google Search Trends report, below).

Despite the scientific accuracy, it was too late to influence public and political communications.

The term “global warming” was firmly embedded in the international psyche. So much so, I still hear people today, in 2021 saying “global warming isn’t happening, just look at cold it’s been in Texas recently!” [Point of note, I’m editing this article three months later and the southern US is in the grip of its hottest summer ever].

Why climate change is a more accurate definition than global warming

On average, the world is warming but this is a linear concept for a complex system. The human mind likes to think linearly … global warming means it gets hotter.

What we’re really talking about is increased energy. The Universe doesn’t care if its hot or cold. The natural laws that underpin climate change are about what form the energy is in and how it is distributed within our biosphere – the only linear concept we should be thinking about, is the difference between order and chaos.

The more free energy there is in a system, the more chaotic it is. Unpredictable floods, tidal surges, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, monsoon, seasonal rainfall and dust storms shatter world agriculture and displace huge numbers of people.

Increasing carbon dioxide makes things, on average, warmer but this affects the distribution of energy. Earth’s biosphere receives heat from the Sun and because energy can neither be created or destroyed, an increase in heat energy, means an increase in other energy types. Heating the Earth results in a change in the pattern of wind (kinetic) energy because the heat excites particles that expand.

It doesn’t mean everywhere becomes windier and hotter.

It’s more like the water in a bowl. The more you destabilise it by shaking, the greater the change in levels at the side. The water level at the bowl edge goes above and below the stable average but the distribution of the effect changes, as you move towards the centre of gravity.

If you’re unlucky enough to live near the edges of the bowl, you’ll be more seriously impacted.

If you blow over the back of your hand, it feels cold but the air from your lungs is warm. The stronger you blow, the colder your hand feels but the hotter the air gets, closest to your mouth. This is why Texas got colder weather. It also works in reverse. Australia has been on the wrong side of the equation and ended up with catastrophic bushfires and the same may be said for California.

Changing the narrative about climate, warming and biodiversity

Even when we talk about climate change, we’re really talking about collapse of biodiversity. That is another term that has been horrendously misinterpreted, so much so, that the majority of global conservation policies I read, confuse it with species richness.

We just entered the United Nations decade of biodiversity and one of the most important reports from the IUCN’s Guidance for using the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions (2020) incorrectly defines biodiversity as: the diversity of life in all its forms—the diversity of species, of genetic variations within one species, and of ecosystems.

The report states that climate change “is becoming the main driver of biodiversity loss in the coming years, affecting species, habitats and ecosystems”. It’s the other way around. They are talking about species richness, not biodiversity.

Biodiversity is what stabilises the biosphere and reduces climate change. We’ve made climate about warming and biodiversity about extinction, prohibiting ourselves from connecting the two and how they relate to conservation and human life support.

Climate change is caused by biodiversity loss, whether that’s through burning fossil fuel or habitat destruction. Biodiversity is about the interaction of species, to create the structure, function and processes that result in life support for all animals, including humans.

A change in the narrative will be critical

It may seem trivial but simple ideas communicated in few words can spread like wildfire: Make America Great Again, Take Back Control, I Have a Dream … human language is a powerful tool but also a blunt remedy for communicating complex ideas. A couple of words out of place, can create decades of correction.

The good news is, more people are searching the term “climate change” now, with the lines crossing in about 2016, so we must be doing that right.

That narrative now needs to incorporate biodiversity principles in order to make sense. That will mean a huge effort to alter people’s perceptions about what biodiversity means to them.

The story we’re currently telling, in a few words, doesn’t add up– there is no way I could explain to anyone, how species richness relates to global warming, unless I first reframe the conversation as biodiversity (structure, function and process) and climate change (reversing chaos). The current story we’re telling is divergent.

It’s one of the reasons why the global conservation movement finds it so hard to convince anyone that conservation matters and it leaves conservationists open to political criticism.

In the link below, I review a report by Pew where the lead author has incorrectly ascribed marine habitat restoration to sargassum, rather than wildlife. An otherwise useful contribution to the narrative, shoots itself in the foot, by overlooking the role of wildlife and biodiversity. Good luck trying to convince Bolsonaro that the weed that’s killing his tourism, is good for the environment!

Needless to say, as this is the subject of my work, the lack of focus on wildlife-driven processes and the fact that humans have equivalent needs to all other animals, are facts that are inherently missing from most of the global dialogue.

I’d certainly like to see this change.