Climate hysteria

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Climate hysteria is a political catchphrase for an emotional attitude towards current climate change that is perceived as exaggerated by those who use the word. It was voted “Unwort of the year 2019” by the German language-critical campaign “ Unwort des Jahres ”.

use

In the 1990s, the term appeared sporadically in publications in the German-speaking area, for example through the translation of a guest article by Richard Lindzen in Die Zeit . In 2004 the publicist and later AfD politician Konrad Adam used it in an article in the world . In 2006/2007 "climate hysteria" was used en masse in the USA . Also discussed in the course of several articles in the Australian , where the climate change science was denied the journalist Alaan Wood, concern about climate change as a "green hysteria" (Engl. "Green hysteria"). In 2007 Christian Bartsch warned in the much-cited article Against the climate hysteria in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) : More light in the darkness of climate change , an “ideology of a man-made climate catastrophe” and an allegedly imminent “climate dictatorship”. In the late 2000s, the term was used more frequently in German-language newspapers.

The term found frequent use from spring 2019 onwards with the discussions about climate protection , with AfD politicians and publicists often denying or relativizing the decisive human influence on climate change. The right-wing populist party Perussuomalaiset also use the term in the election campaign for the parliamentary elections in Finland 2019 , according to the New York Times as a new “rallying cry”.

In July 2019, Joachim Müller-Jung wrote in the FAZ that in view of the "current hot week [...] debate about 'climate hysteria' which could hardly be more unsuitable" had flared up. Franz Alt commented two days later at Telepolis on the "heated debate about an alleged 'climate hysteria'" after his first requested comment had been rejected as too " alarmist " by one of the highest-circulation newspapers . He criticized that "network journalists and some colleagues from renowned newspapers" would not accept the facts.

Unword

The institutionally independent language-critical campaign “Unwort des Jahres” selected the word “climate hysteria” as “Unwort of the year 2019” in Germany from the 671 suggestions with 397 different expressions sent in during 2019. The jury's justification is that the word “climate hysteria” defamed climate protection efforts and the climate protection movement and discredited important debates on climate protection. The word pathologizes “across the board the increasing commitment to climate protection as a kind of collective psychosis”, is “misleading” in view of the state of scientific research and supports “in an irresponsible way anti- science tendencies”.

With the announcement of the unword of the year 2019, the words " Umvolkung " and " Ethikmauer " were critically mentioned as further unwords in 2019.

Reactions

At the time, as in the Süddeutsche Zeitung , it was commented that the term was also sexist . " Hysteria " is an outdated diagnosis that was originally only issued to women. Juli Zeh criticized the election as counterproductive because it was one-sided. She suggested that “both 'climate hysteria', but also, for example, the term ' climate denier '” should be labeled as non-words. In a specialist magazine for nursing, Heidi Günther explained that the word of the year " Respectante " was the more appropriate word in view of her expected financial situation after 47 years of work. The spread of “bad speech” and terms like “climate hysteria” by right-wing parties can be expected. They would "probably be happy" about the attention.

The Deputy Prime Minister of Bavaria Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) said that the jury presumed “to say that the climate movement must not be defamed”. Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) welcomed the reasoning. It could not be pretended that necessary things were hysteria, "as if we were sick".

Web links

Wiktionary: Climate hysteria  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b DWDS - progression curves - basis: DWDS newspaper corpus (from 1945) . DWDS word curve for “climate hysteria”, created by the digital dictionary of the German language . Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  2. ^ Richard S. Lindzen, translated by Sigrid Weise: "The climate hysteria is above all a good source of money for environmental protection associations": Much steam about nothing. In: The time. May 1, 1992, accessed January 23, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b c Patrick Gensing : Where does the term “climate hysteria” come from? In: tagesschau.de . January 14, 2020, accessed January 14, 2020 .
  4. ↑ David McKnight: A change in the climate? The journalism of opinion at News Corporation . In: Journalism . Volume 11, No. 6, December 16, 2010, p. 700, doi: 10.1177 / 1464884910379704 .
  5. ↑ Ellen Barry , Johanna Lemola: The Right's New Rallying Cry in Finland: 'Climate Hysteria' . In: nytimes.com . April 12, 2019. Retrieved January 23, 2020.
  6. ↑ Joachim Müller-Jung: Debate on "Climate Hysteria": Heat at the Limit . In: FAZ. July 25, 2019, accessed January 15, 2020.
  7. ^ Franz Alt: Climate hysteria? In: Telepolis . July 27, 2019, accessed January 14, 2020.
  8. ↑ Decision of the language jury: “Climate hysteria” is the bad word of the year. In: tagesschau.de. January 14, 2020, accessed January 14, 2020 .
  9. ↑ a b Unword of the year 2019: "Climate hysteria" . unwortdesjahres.net . Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  10. ↑ Johannes Schneider: “Climate hysteria” does not have to be a bad word . In: The time . January 14, 2020, accessed January 14, 2020.
  11. ↑ Jakob Biazza: The speech of "hysteria" is a roar from the baboon rock. In: sueddeutsche.de. January 14, 2020, accessed January 15, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Juli Zeh in conversation with Jörg Biesler: Juli Zeh: "This choice is counterproductive" . In: deutschlandfunk.de . January 14, 2020, Retrieved January 17, 2020.
  13. ^ Heidi Günther: Every year again . In: JuKiP - your specialist magazine for health and child care . Volume 9, No. 2, April 2020, p. 50, doi: 10.1055 / a-1101-6729 .
  14. ↑ Jonathan Schulenburg: "climate hysteria": Aiwangers judgment activists is misleading in: br.de . January 18, 2020, Retrieved January 18, 2020.
  15. ↑ Petr Jerabek: "Climate hysteria": Aiwanger railed against unword of the year . In: br.de . January 14, 2020, Retrieved January 18, 2020.