The AP Stylebook just changed the meaning of 'global warming' with one amazing edit.
The AP Stylebook is one of the go-to sources for the rules of American English.
Published annually by the nonprofit Associated Press, the AP Stylebook is often used by journalists and publishers to standardize things like grammar, punctuation, and abbreviations as well as appropriate word usage.
For example, if you're not sure whether "civil rights movement" should be capitalized or if it's OK to abbreviate "BLT" when the sandwich gets mentioned, the AP Stylebook has you covered.
A page from a previous edition of the AP Stylebook. (It's also why I'm forced to use "OK" and not "okay," grrrr.) Photo by George Kelly/Flickr.
The Stylebook gets updated each year to reflect the latest changes in language.
This year alone, they added more than 300 new or revised entries, ranging from amaretto to NCAA sports to the correct way to talk about suicide.
But there was one change in particular that really got our attention.
According to the new official style rules, people can no longer be "climate change deniers" or "climate change skeptics."
Here's how the AP described the reason for this change:
"Scientists who consider themselves real skeptics — who debunk mysticism, ESP and other pseudoscience, such as those who are part of the Center for Skeptical Inquiry — complain that non-scientists who reject mainstream climate science have usurped the phrase skeptic. They say they aren't skeptics because 'proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims.'" — AP staff memo from Stylebook editors Sally Jacobsen, Dave Minthorn, and Paula Froke
You read that right — the willful refusal of "those who reject mainstream climate science" to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence in the world is giving actual skeptics a bad name.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, "Irony" is "a situation that is strange or funny because things happen in a way that seems to be the opposite of what you expected." This image is not ironic. Photo by Matt Brown/Flickr.
Instead, the new AP Stylebook recommends the use of "climate change doubters" or "those who reject mainstream climate science." They do not, however, forbid the use of other pejorative insults to describe the willful ignorance of this vocal minority.
They've also officially equated "climate change" and "global warming," which isn't the hugest deal but is at least enough to shut down the haters who say things like, "But I was cold this one time last year so climate change can't be real!"
But AP's language rules need to stay objective, so they made a change on the other side as well.
Despite the overwhelming evidence, "those who reject mainstream climate science" continue to insist that our dangerously changing climate is not actually changing or else that the rapidly melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels are totally no big deal and just something that happens sometimes.
You know. Just like it did with the dinosaurs.
Best case scenario: Our fossilized remains are discovered and displayed by the next dominant species on the planet in 65 million years. And that's reason enough for inaction? Let's think about that. Photo by Andrew McMillan.
Of course, it would be unfair if the AP were to consider only the perspective of people who accept the near-unanimous scientific consensus. They had to factor the feelings of "those who reject mainstream climate science" as well:
"Those who reject climate science say the phrase denier has the pejorative ring of Holocaust denier so The Associated Press prefers 'climate change doubter' or 'someone who rejects mainstream science.'"
(I might be biased, but I think that if you're more concerned about being associated with Holocaust deniers than you are with the fact that 97% of climate scientists agree that we are headed for certain doom, maybe you need to look at your life choices?)
Pot, meet Kettle. Photo by RexxS/Wikimedia Commons.
Basically the AP has officially and objectively updated our language to reflect what we already know: Climate change is real, and it is serious.
Language is the way that we communicate shared meaning, and it's always evolving. Simply put, if enough people agree on the meaning of the thing, then, well, that's what it means. (That's how "literally" can literally come to mean its own antonym or why we forget that even Shakespeare said "aks" instead of "ask.")
But words alone are not enough to undo the damage from our changing climate. You can do that by signing this petition ahead of the upcoming Paris climate talks — where all the world's leaders are coming together to solve the crisis.
And if that's not enough for "those who reject mainstream climate science," then I don't know what is.
Men try to read the most disturbing comments women get online back to them.
If you wouldn't say it to their faces, don't type it.
This isn’t comfortable to talk about.
Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault and violence.
A recent video by Just Not Sports took two prominent female sportswriters and had regular guys* read the awful abuse they receive online aloud.
Sportswriters Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro sat by as men read some of the most vile tweets they receive on a daily basis. See how long you can last watching it.
*(Note: The men reading them did not write these comments; they're just being helpful volunteers to prove a point.)
It starts out kind of jokey but eventually devolves into messages like this:
Awful.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
These types of messages come in response to one thing: The women were doing their jobs.
Those wishes that DiCaro would die by hockey stick and get raped? Those were the result of her simply reporting on the National Hockey League's most disturbing ordeal: the Patrick Kane rape case, in which one of the league's top players was accused of rape.
DiCaro wasn't writing opinion pieces. She was simply reporting things like what the police said, statements from lawyers, and just general everyday work reporters do. In response, she received a deluge of death threats. Her male colleagues didn't receive nearly the same amount of abuse.
It got to the point where she and her employer thought it best to stay home for a day or two for her own physical safety.
The men in the video seemed absolutely shocked that real live human beings would attack someone simply for doing their jobs.
Not saying it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Most found themselves speechless or, at very least, struggling to read the words being presented.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Think this is all just anecdotal? There's evidence to the contrary.
The Guardian did a study to find out how bad this problem really is.
They did a study of over 70 million comments that have been posted on their site since 2006. They counted how many comments that violated their comment policy were blocked.
The stats were staggering.
From their comprehensive and disturbing article:
If you can’t say it to their face... don’t type it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
So what can people do about this kind of harassment once they know it exists?
There are no easy answers. But the more people who know this behavior exists, the more people there will be to tell others it's not OK to talk to anyone like that.
Watch the whole video below:
.This article originally appeared on 04.27.16