In IWABC, there’s a section called “What’s a meta for?” (Great pun, right? Ahem.) that digs into what Naomi Klein would call, “the stories that got us into this mess.” And the alternate stories that could help get us out of the mess, or at least through it. There’s a short 3-paragraph bit where I do a lightning review of the various phrases — from“Climate Change” to “Climate Apocalypse” to “Climate Emergency” — we’ve used to name the predicament we’re in. (After all, what is a name but a story in concentrated form?) Well, those three paragraphs used to be a whole 3-page+ chapter unto itself. And here it is. In a time like ours, better nomenclature, far from being “just semantics,” can actually make the difference between human extinction and survival. How terrifying! But also: how thrilling to know that hair-splitting semantics might be able to save the world ;-)
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Hair-splitting semantics can save the world.
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In IWABC, there’s a section called “What’s a meta for?” (Great pun, right? Ahem.) that digs into what Naomi Klein would call, “the stories that got us into this mess.” And the alternate stories that could help get us out of the mess, or at least through it. There’s a short 3-paragraph bit where I do a lightning review of the various phrases — from“Climate Change” to “Climate Apocalypse” to “Climate Emergency” — we’ve used to name the predicament we’re in. (After all, what is a name but a story in concentrated form?) Well, those three paragraphs used to be a whole 3-page+ chapter unto itself. And here it is. In a time like ours, better nomenclature, far from being “just semantics,” can actually make the difference between human extinction and survival. How terrifying! But also: how thrilling to know that hair-splitting semantics might be able to save the world ;-)