1.On Our #ClimateChange Episode
The theme for our November 22nd episode of Sekai e Hasshin! SNS Eigojutsu on NHK E-Tele was #ClimateChange. We’ve talked about the environment on the show a number of times in the past, and this time we focused on climate change and all of the extreme weather phenomena it appears to be causing.
We looked at tweets about Typhoon Hagibis, which hit Japan in October 2019, as well as flooding in places like Spain and Venice caused by record rainfalls. We looked at a video of 12 billion tons of ice melting and flowing into the ocean in Greenland on an unseasonable August day where temperatures reached 22 degrees celsius.
We also talked about Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s speech at the U.N. Climate Action Summit held in late September 2019. Thunberg chastised world leaders for not taking decisive steps to address climate change and called on them to take action.
In response, U.S. President Donald Trump mocked Thunberg on Twitter with a message that called her a “very happy young girl". Thunberg, in turn, trolled the president by changing her Twitter profile to the same quote. For millennials like myself and the younger generations coming of age, climate change and severe weather phenomena are time bombs we inherited from our parents’ generation. (For more about Greta Thunberg’s Friday’s for Future movement, check out LANGUAGE & EDUCATION #017.)
Finally, as a native Californian, it would be remiss of me if I did not mention the California wildfires, which experts say is getting worse with each passing year due to the effects of climate change. Heat waves and drought have dried out dead plants and vegetation, making them susceptible to burning. Strong winds stoke and spread the resulting fire.
Thank you to all the firefighters & first responders who are on the scene, working to contain the #KincadeFire.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) October 24, 2019
The images coming out of the area are devastating. Evacuations are underway now. If in the area, please follow directions of local authorities. pic.twitter.com/3T3roGoyQy
The photos and videos of the wildfire feel like hell on earth—something straight out of a Hollywood disaster flick. (The California wildfires and the complicated relationship the state has with the environment deserve a thorough look at a later date.)
2.From Global Warming to Climate Change to Climate Crisis
In the episode our resident commentator Furuta Daisuke-san also talked about how he uses social media as a journalist to collect information about topics like climate change. He explained how he uses a hashtag tool called RiteTag that allows you to easily find and see the popularity of related hashtags for any topic.
When looking up related keywords, it’s also helpful to look not just at what’s trending now but at how the conversation has evolved over time. The meaning of words can subtly or significantly change over time; in other cases words are supplanted by new ones that better reflect the zeitgeist. Using a tool like Google Trends, you can see a chart of how many times a certain keyword has been searched for going all the way back to 2004.
Regarding the topic of climate change, I wrote about how the language has evolved over recent history in LANGUAGE & EDUCATION #017. When I was a kid growing up in the 90s, most of the conversation was about global warming. Then ever since the 2000s, climate change has been the more common term, partly because global warming sounds like the Earth is on a one way ticket to a fire and brimstone climate. Climate change skeptics always say the same thing:
In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded. In coming days, expected to get even colder. People can’t last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Waming? Please come back fast, we need you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2019
In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded. In coming days, expected to get even colder. People can’t last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Waming[sic]? Please come back fast, we need you!
More recently, activists have criticized the term climate change for not accurately reflecting the extreme urgency that this problem poses to the human race. The language has evolved significantly in 2019, with activists like Greta Thunberg and certain media outlets having begun using language like “climate crisis" and “climate emergency". The Oxford Dictionary even chose “climate emergency" as its 2019 Word of the Year.
It’s 2019. Can we all now please stop saying “climate change” and instead call it what it is: climate breakdown, climate crisis, climate emergency, ecological breakdown, ecological crisis and ecological emergency?#ClimateBreakdown #EcologicalBreakdown
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) May 4, 2019
Expressions like these help spread awareness of the dire state of the environment. Some argue, however, that words like “crisis" and “emergency" are only preaching to the choir. They may rally those who are already concerned about the issue, but it may have the opposite effect on everyone else. For climate change skeptics, it is only further proof that the whole hoax is just much ado about nothing. Such words also have a numbing effect, and can even make us feel powerless, like the issue is a lost cause and no single person can make a difference.
3.Extreme Weather English Idioms
●it’s raining cats and dogs
This idiom describes especially heavy rain and has been used since at least the 17th century. The Japanese equivalents would be hageshii ame (激しい雨) or doshaburi (土砂降り). There are a number of theories about the etymology of the phrase, and for me it makes most sense when I imagine the commotion caused between a cat and dog fighting.
●it never rains but it pours
This idiom refers to the fact that misfortunes or difficult situations tend to follow in succession. The Japanese equivalent is nakittsura ni hachi, which literally means “(suffering) a bee sting on top of a face swollen after crying.” The expression certainly reflects the onslaught of natural disasters and extreme weather phenomena that the Earth has been experiencing in recent years.
●tempest in a teapot
This idiom has a direct Japanese translation: koppu no naka no arashi (コップの中の嵐). It refers to an event or situation that seems serious to those involved, but has actually been exaggerated out of proportion. To climate change skeptics like Donald Trump, liberal environmental activists are all snowflakes who are getting worked up about a tempest in a teapot. Interestingly, the expression “tempest in a teapot” is used in the U.S., whereas “storm in a teacup” is used in the U.K. I suppose Americans didn’t change the teapot to a coffee mug because then you would lose the alliteration.
●be snowed under
To be snowed under means to be overwhelmed by too much of something, usually work. “I’m snowed under with work” is the English equivalent of the Japanese phrase shigoto ni owareteiru (仕事に追われている).
●a snowball’s chance in hell
If you have a snowball’s chance in hell, it means you have zero chance of success. If someone says to you that “Your proposal has a snowball’s chance in hell of being approved," you can expect that your proposal will be rejected.
●hell on earth
This idiom refers to an extremely unpleasant place or situation. The Japanese equivalent is iki-jigoku (生き地獄). It is often used to describe battlefields and deserts. Often used hyperbolically: an American having to deal with a tough new boss might refer to their workplace as “hell on earth”.
●when hell freezes over
This idiom is a way to say that you think something will never happen. “Eric, I’ll go out with you when hell freezes over,” means that you would never go out with Eric. Side note, when the Eagles broke up in 1980, a reporter asked vocalist and drummer Don Henley when he thought the band might play together again; Henley responded “When hell freezes over.” 14 years later the band reformed and recorded a performance for MTV, which was released on CD under the title Hell Freezes Over. The band followed that up with a live concert tour of the same name.
4.“Cli-fi" Films
For some, expressions like “crisis” and “when hell freezes over” may evoke Hollywood disaster movies.
One of the most famous disaster films set in Japan is the 1973 film Japan Sinks. Hollywood, meanwhile, has depicted the apocalypse so many times that it has become cliche, but among them 2004’s The Day After Tomorrow stands out for the fact that it depicts the arrival of an ice age triggered by global warming. Setting aside the dubious scientific accuracy of such films, they take advantage of the public’s growing awareness of climate change as very real issues.
In recent years, literature and movies that deal with climate change and global warming have been dubbed “cli-fi”, short for “climate fiction”. (Side note, sci-fi is referred to as “SF” in Japan, which always felt weird to me, because SF is short for San Francisco.)
Recent notable films from the cli-fi genre include Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road.
While some of these films are legitimately great, they are less effective in terms of their environmental message. The post-apocalypse world seems so different, so far removed from our reality that we can’t quite relate. If civilization is destined to collapse, we think, it will happen in a far-off future when we’re long dead. In that sense, cli-fi doesn’t reflect increasing awareness of environmental issues so much as it reflects a certain resignation on our part.
While some American teenagers may have walked out of the theater after watching The Day After Tomorrow with a renewed sense of urgency, many adults likely left the theater numbed by the experience. To them, climate change and global warming felt inevitable. After all, movies are escapism.
