climate change

2350

polar bearLast Sunday, before the UN Climate Summit 2014, which was held just a few days ago, around 600,000 climate change protestors participated in rallies in more than 2000 locations worldwide. Half of them gathered in NYC where around 300,000 environment lovers were marching through the streets, ironically, leaving piles of rubbish after themselves. People protested in order to urge the world leaders to take decisive actions and, as organisers have said, to transform climate change “from an environmental concern to an everybody issue“.

The concept of climate change is not only pretty straightforward, but also backed up by mother nature sending us strong signals that we are doing something wrong on this planet. However, no matter how obvious the problems are, this concept still appears to be of a questionable nature to plenty of people. It must be said that the issue of climate change should not be open for a debate questioning its existence, because, like John Oliver claims in his show “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver“, we don’t need people’s opinions on a fact. He points out that having an opinion poll asking whether climate change exists is the same as asking which number is bigger – 5 or 15.

During the UN Climate Change Summit 2014, Leonardo DiCaprio delivered a speech, stressing that we are looking at climate change as if it were a fictitious phenomenon. Moreover, according to him, the problem goes even further since this disaster has grown beyond the choices that individuals make and it is a high time for governments and industries to step in and take large-scale decisions.

Nothing new – a lot of people would say, and I would be among them. We tend to talk about climate change so much that, I believe, for some of us it will soon become a taboo topic in a casual conversation. I have also heard people, coming from the colder parts of the world, who say that climate change is not a bad thing, since winters are less harsh now, so we might as well relax and enjoy it. However, it just proves that something is, indeed, wrong and serious rethinking is needed. This is why this week we have chosen the term “climate change” from our IATE database.

 

climate change IATE

We invite you to suggest the equivalent terms in the missing EU languages, or alternatives to the existing term in your language if you consider the proposed term inaccurate. Provide your answer with a reliable reference and an accurate definition and/or context if possible.

A terminologist for the language in question will revise your answer and decide whether to validate them. Given the implications of the process, a delay is to be expected.

 

By Julija Televičiūtė

Graduate from Vilnius University, English Philology (BA)

Translation trainee at Lithuanian Unit