What's in a name (frame)? Describing the climate thing

The New York Times' Andrew Revkin asks in his latest Dot Earth blog post if there might be "more effective ways to describe human-caused global warming." The problem with "global warming," he says, has been summed up by Seth Godin thusly:

The muted reaction to our impending disaster comes down to two things:

1. the name.

Global is good.
Warm is good.
Even greenhouses are good places.

How can "global warming" be bad?

I'm not being facetious. If the problem were called "Atmosphere cancer" or "Pollution death" the entire conversation would be framed in a different way.

Neither of those alternatives will fly because they are inaccurate metaphors. Revkin notes that John P. Holdren of Harvard University's center on science and technology policy likes "global climate instability," but that lengthens the phrase by a word, which won't be popular with news editors tasked with writing headlines.

Another suggestion is "global heating" from James Lovelock. George Monbiot likes that one, too, going so far as to title his 2005 book on the subject "Heat." I agree that "heating" is more dramatic than "warming," but I don't think it quite captures the problem, for the same reason Godin identified. And, of course, the phrase "climate change" may have the advantage of appealing to scientists because it avoids an implied value judgment, but it does little to mobilize the public.

I have an idea. Does "climate crisis" turn your crank?

The relevant definitions of crisis include

1.a stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events, esp. for better or for worse, is determined; turning point.

2.a condition of instability or danger, as in social, economic, political, or international affairs, leading to a decisive change.

3.a dramatic emotional or circumstantial upheaval in a person's life.

For "turning point" read "tipping point." And it's getting harder to deny that a world more than 2°C warmer than pre-industrial temperatures won't involve some degree of "danger" at the social, economic, political and international sphere and lead to an "upheaval" in more ways than one. Yes, I think "crisis" does the trick.

More than a few climatologists will bristle at the use of the phrase for the aforementioned negative values it carries. I know that's not what science is all about. But for the rest of us, I see no reason not to start referring to the climate crisis instead of mere climate change or global warming. You'll note that this is not a new idea. The official website for "An Inconvenient Truth" is climatecrisis.net. There are existing groups like The Climate Crisis coalition. The BBC has used the phrase, and Greenpeace (not too surprisingly) is already on board. And the list of books with the phrase in their subtitles includes works by Lovelock, Mark Lynas, Ross Gelbspan and more.

So why not embrace it en masse? Anyone got a problem with that?