A good point, Stuart, although the language is already there and I've mentioned it again and again.....
The temperature of the Earth's atmosphere is not, and never has been, constant.
Therefore, naturally, we would have global warming
or global cooling - both amount to a
part of
climate change.
Most scientists have stressed that concerns are with
climate change rather than
global warming pers se.
What we are concerned about are
anthropogenic changes -
i.e. climate changes due specifically to human activity - this will all be added to (or taken away from
) any natural climate changes. It must be admitted that many people have taken advantage of these
two vectors to confuse the issue so that they don't have to take any action ...
Therefore if you want a simple label for what we
can do something about then it has been there for a long time -
anthropogenically enhanced climatic change -
but it's not bery catchy is it?
This is where you see the problem - use a comprehensive definition of what the problem is and some people will say, "That's too technical, can't cope with that .... ". Use a simplified term like
global warming or
climate change then people (sometimes the same ones
) will say, "You're over-simplifying .... it's a natural phenomenon .... " .... anything really so that they don't have to change their life-style
The further complication is that when we talk about 'climate change' it is actually as variable as that on the local scale. The atmospheric temperature globally will rise, but this doesn't mean that Britain (for instance) will end up with nice calm Mediterranean climate [I have more than once had people saying, "I don't mind about global warming - I'll be able to go to Brighton rather than Marbella for holidays ...."
]. What has always been clear about the British isles is that with changes of weather systems in the northern hemisphere, weather on these islands would become almost unpredictable (it's not easy to give a weather forecast at present!) .... don't say you weren't warned, thirty years ago ..... or earlier ...