The term "global warming" being seen as interchangeable with "climate change" has really been troublesome, and I think has led a lot of people to think surface warming is the entirety of what "climate change" is.

The term "climate change" was literally created by conservative activist and Bush pollster Frank Luntz to confuse people about global warming and muddy the waters.

From his Wikipedia article:

> Although Luntz later tried to distance himself from the Bush administration policy, it was his idea that administration communications reframe global warming as climate change since "climate change" was thought to sound less severe.

The scientific use of both terms has been around since the 80s, and is pretty well-settled, with climate change evolving from "inadvertent climate modification" which was the go-to term in the 70s.

The memo you are referring to happened well over 20 years later. The term was not created by Frank Luntz.

>In the 1980s, the terms global warming and climate change became more common. Though the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably,[24] scientifically, global warming refers only to increased surface warming, while climate change describes the totality of changes to Earth's climate system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change#Terminology

https://web.archive.org/web/20100809221926/http://www.nasa.g...

Louisiana, too, has been suffering the same.

> less dependent on foreign resources is another way of say "reduced global trade" which has been and continues to be a major part of our economy.

TBF I'm growing more and more apathetic to this whole "economy" thing. Unbounded growth is what led us to the present problem in the first place. What about we try to optimize for quality of life instead of quantity of made-up number?

>What about we try to optimize for quality of life instead of quantity of made-up number?

That's still economic growth. I don't know about you, but I would like there to be treatments for medical issues that aren't curable yet. I would also like to get improvements in life in general like better insulation, better water etc. The sum of all of that improvements is economic growth though.

You're right, but the current system is full of perverse incentives. Sure someone is looking for a cure to the cancer, but for every scientist/researcher there is a thousand cars each carrying a single person to work an office job they could've done from home, a hundred bitcoin mining rigs running off coal, a dozen private jets, etc.

Just look at the mean salary in US vs western EU, but compare healthcare, access to education, public transport. EU still has a very long way to go, but I think it's proof enough that "line go up" is very different from (even if correlated to) actual quality of life.

Even George Rombio agreed climate change is positive for northern climates. The desserts are retreating and the earth re-greening. The climate winners enjoy longer growing seasons and more arable land. If see levels rise, we can build sea walls and levies. But if you choose to rebuild after disasters, instead of relocating, which used to be the norm, then each time you rebuild you increase your risk from severe weather events. Naturally insurers take a dimm view of that. It is U.S. policy causing your biggest problems.