Climaticide

Climaticide refers to the post-industrial alteration of the earth's Holocene Epoch climate through human activities such as the consumption of fossil fuels, deforestation, etc. Unlike global warming and climate change which can occur in any era and be, wholly or in part, the result of natural events such as variations in the earth's orbit, the wobble of its axis, or solar radiation, climaticide is entirely the result of human behavior.

While expressions such as global warming and climate change, are inherently value neutral, climaticide has a negative connotation both in form and usage. Climate alterations considered to be the result of climaticide are perceived as threatening the prevailing structures of human civilization and the survival of much of the earth's fauna and flora.

According to James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies

Our home planet is dangerously near a tipping point at which human-made greenhouse gases reach a
level where major climate changes can proceed mostly under their own momentum. Warming will shift climatic
zones by intensifying the hydrologic cycle, affecting freshwater availability and human health. We will see repeated
coastal tragedies associated with storms and continuously rising sea levels. The implications are profound,
and the only resolution is for humans to move to a fundamentally different energy pathway within a decade. Otherwise,
it will be too late for one-third of the world’s animal and plant species and millions of the most vulnerable
members of our own species.

We may be able to preserve the remarkable planet on which civilization developed, but it will not be easy: special
interests are resistant to change and have inordinate power in our governments, especially in the United States.
Understanding the nature and causes of climate change is essential to crafting solutions to our current crisis.

Etymology

The word climaticide derives from the from Old French climat or late L. clima, climat-, from Gk klima slope, zone and the Latin suffix -cida (cutter or killer).

Differences in the Use of Climaticide in French and English

The definition of climaticide in French is somewhat different from its definition in English.

The French definition, while sharing with the English term the concept of dangerous anthropogenic climate change, also includes an element of willfulness implying that individuals engaging in climaticidal activities do so knowingly and intentionally.

Example from Radio France: Le contenu en CO2 du kilowattheure électrique français en question
L’ONG Agir pour l’environancenement a diffusé la semaine dernière une note interne du RTE et de l’Ademe, datée d’octobre 2007, qui détaille trois méthodes de calcul du contenu en CO2 du kWh électrique français. La première, en vigueur, donne pour le chauffage une moyenne de 180 grammes de CO2 par kilowattheure. Les deux autres, entre 500 et 600. Peut-on en conclure que le kWh est "climaticide"? BENJAMIN DESSUS, ingénieur et économiste, président de l’association Global chance, revient pour le JDLE sur la polémique.
LE JOURNAL DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT, 31/02/08 http://www.journaldelenvironnement.net/fr/document/detail.as

The English definition omits the element of knowledge or intent, so that all human activity leading to alteration of the pre-industrial Holocene Epoch climate is considered climaticide.

Example from: Docudharma All Coming Together To All Fall Apart: Climate Crisis
by: buhdydharma
Tue Apr 29, 2008 at 11:09:43 PDT

(Notice: This will not be a pleasant essay to read, and please click the links)

Global Warming, Climate Crisis, Climaticide, whatever you want to call it, is not some future calamity waiting to happen. It is happening even as we speak. It is happening now. Its devastating effects may some day be dramatic enough to be worthy of a Hollywood movie....which is how we are conditioned to think of disaster these days, if it doesn't have explosions or tidal waves, it is not REALLY a disaster..... But that is not how it works.

That is not the form that this disaster takes. It takes the form of a slow, rolling, building crisis, unnoticed at first, then easily explained away, then easily dismissed as someone else's problem. Until it is too late. Starting with the worlds poorest people and gradually working it's way up "the food chain." The food chain of all of human society, every nation, every state, every city every village, every human. Until the 'elite' are finally affected and alarmed...which will be too late.

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