Climate crisis

This article is about the term or expression, Climate crisis. For substantive discussion of the current warming of the Earth's climate system, see Climate change. For formal recognition of climate change as a crisis or emergency, see Climate emergency declaration.
Google trends data shows that, following the 2006 release of Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth,[1] searches for the term climate crisis increased, with a resurgence beginning in late 2018. Also graphed: searches for the term climate emergency.

Climate crisis is a term that is used to describe global warming and climate change and their effects. This term and the term climate emergency have been used to emphasize the threat of global warming to Earth's natural environment and to humans, and to urge aggressive climate change mitigation and transformational adaptation.[2][3][4][5]

The term climate crisis is used by those who "believe it evokes the gravity of the threats the planet faces from continued greenhouse gas emissions and can help spur the kind of political willpower that has long been missing from climate advocacy".[2] They believe, much as global warming provoked more emotional engagement and support for action than climate change,[2][6][7] calling climate change a crisis could have an even stronger effect.[2]

A study has shown the term climate crisis invokes a strong emotional response by conveying a sense of urgency.[8] However, some caution this response may be counter-productive[9] and may cause a backlash due to perceptions of alarmist exaggeration.[10][11]

In the scientific journal BioScience, a January 2020 article that was endorsed by over 11,000 scientists states: "the climate crisis has arrived" and that an "immense increase of scale in endeavors to conserve our biosphere is needed to avoid untold suffering due to the climate crisis".[12][13]

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  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference EconPolWeekly_20090905 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference BioscienceWarningLetter_20200101 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference BioSci_Warning2021_20210728 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).