Collins helpfully defined it as “a form of protest in which people absent themselves from education or work in order to join demonstrations demanding action to counter climate change.” Or the “climate emergency,” if you prefer. Climate change, in fact, now seems too milquetoast to many for what the planet is facing. One factor that prompted Oxford Dictionaries to designate “climate emergency” as its word of the year was a decision by the Guardian newspaper to use that phrase in its environmental coverage. There’s also “climate action” and “climate crisis,” pretty much a synonym for “climate emergency.” And finally “ecocide,” or “destruction of the natural environment by deliberate or negligent human action.” Definitely something to be anxious about. So it may in the long run be highly significant that 2019 witnessed the emergence of a public discourse dominated by the language of climate change — or climate emergency.

Source: thestar December 31, 2019 11:05 UTC