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We currently have tags (6 questions) and (6 questions). I don't think we need both of these tags, so the question becomes which tag do we keep? I definitely feel one of these should be synonymized to the other and currently favor as the master tag.

Do you agree that we only need one of these tags? If so, which one should be the master tag?

I've made the answers CW, so feel free to add commentary to your choice if you desire.

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    $\begingroup$ For future reference regarding this type of thread — It's generally better to let everyone have a voice by soliciting thoughts and opinions rather pre-posting all sides of the conversation yourself in this type of pseudo-poll. It's not difficult to infer what the community wants from the conversation while allowing for the possibility that there's an issue we have not considered. Polling is generally not a good substitute for discussion. Thanks. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Commented May 21, 2014 at 13:56
  • $\begingroup$ @RobertCartaino understood. Thanks for pointing that out. $\endgroup$
    – casey Mod
    Commented May 21, 2014 at 13:58
  • $\begingroup$ We only need one - [climate-change]. $\endgroup$
    – L.B.
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 18:37
  • $\begingroup$ @casey Has a final decision been taking in this matter? It looks like the majority is in favor of making global warming a synonym of climate change, but I don't see this in the tag synonyms. $\endgroup$
    – THelper
    Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 10:45
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    $\begingroup$ @THelper thanks for the reminder. The votes now show a much stronger consensus than they used to. I have created the tag synonym global-warming --> climate-change $\endgroup$
    – casey Mod
    Commented Dec 5, 2014 at 3:31

4 Answers 4

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We only need one of these tags, and should be the master.

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    $\begingroup$ Participants in the discourse adopted "climate-change" in the mid 1980s, superceding "global warming", and was embodied in the formation of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change. Given this international recognition of the term, and although it's not perfect, I think we'd do well to adopt it, until a better term (ideally one that incorporates non-climate effects such as ocean acidification) achieves reasonable levels of recognition and adoption. $\endgroup$
    – 410 gone
    Commented May 21, 2014 at 11:33
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    $\begingroup$ I don't think "supercede" is the right word. "climate change" was used because it was recognised that the problems related to anthropogenic GHG emissions were broader than just a slightly higher global average temperature. "Global warming" is still an entirely legitimate term - it's just that it's an intermediate stage between cause (GHG emissions) and relevant effect (changing weather patterns). See also my comment below. $\endgroup$
    – naught101
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 3:56
  • $\begingroup$ @naught101 that is a good point. Consider through that getting the usage perfectly isn't necessarily the goal, rather the tags are to help people find questions to answer. A follow on question then is would [global-warming] and [climate-change] questions tend to be so different that having a single tag would be a hindrance? $\endgroup$
    – casey Mod
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 18:09
  • $\begingroup$ I think there would be enough questions about "natural" (non-anthropogenic) climate change to warrant a separate category, yes. Although, most of it would probably fall under the category of palaeoclimatology. Not sure about whether it would be a hinderance to have just one, but I can't see how it would be bad to have three - climate-change as the parent (semantically, not technically), and paleoclimatology and anthropogenic-global-warming as separate categories. $\endgroup$
    – naught101
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 23:55
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These tags should not be synonyms.

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    $\begingroup$ "Global warming" is better terminology for what's happening due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission. Global warming causes "Climate change" - different patterns in the climate, as well as just a higher mean temperature. But climate change can be caused by other things: Milankovich cycles, evolution, tectonic activity, etc. climate-change is a more general term, and should certainly be used on the site, but I think that global-warming is also useful. For more distinction, perhaps an anthropogenic-global-warming could be used when discussion human-caused climate change. $\endgroup$
    – naught101
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 3:52
  • $\begingroup$ +1 Agreed they are not the same. Global-warming is one specific aspect of climate change. Late Cenozoic global cooling was a climate-change event, as was the Little Ice Age (a regional one). On the other hand...the point about paleoclimatology covering these events is a good one. Most usage regarding these terms refers to the modern issue of CC/GW. $\endgroup$
    – decvalts
    Commented Jul 13, 2014 at 17:28
  • $\begingroup$ NASA agrees climate.nasa.gov/resources/global-warming-vs-climate-change $\endgroup$
    – f.thorpe Mod
    Commented Sep 25, 2021 at 4:39
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We only need , and should be deleted.

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We only need one of these tags, and should be the master.

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