Jargon Watch
Climate glossaries are a dime a dozen. This one's different. It's meant to be irreverent and opinionated. Suggestions? Additions? Please drop us a note. If you really want textbook definitions of terms, try the EPA's glossary, or this one compiled by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
Alternative Energy
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The energy that has to replace the burning of fossil fuels, because we have no alternative, now that global warming is upon us.
Also referred to as clean energy, because it is untainted by petro-politics, and as renewable energy, because you never run out of it (and so never have to fight wars over it.)
Anthropogenic Emissions
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As Mr. Portokalos says in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, "Give me any word, and I show you the root of that word is Greek." He can even do it with "kimono", so anthropogenic -- close cousin of anthropology -- should be easy for us. It means "caused by human activity."
In relation to global warming, anthropogenic emissions are the gases, most notably carbon dioxide, that we humans have pumped into the air, especially over the last 150 years of modern industrial life, without giving it a thought, as if the atmosphere has the limitless capacity to absorb our waste. It doesn't.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
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Here's what the Competitive Enterprise Institute had to say about it in their ad campaign:
"Carbon Dioxide: they call it pollution; we call it life."
It was probably one of the most ridiculed ad campaigns of recent memory. Last word has to go to Rafael Baptista, who posted this comment on Gristmill.
"How about you make a campaign called 'Uric Acid. They call it urine. We call it lemonade.'"