All snarking about bigoted Trump-voting gun-waving pinheads aside (smug intellectual? NAWWW!), the fact is “Global Warming” was a stupid name for the problem in that it even let hydrocephalic slimeballs like Matt Drudge(!) score points by reminding people of a cold Winter or Spring. You can point out how it actually works until you’re blue in the face, but to people who aren’t, to be charitable, critical thinkers it all sounds counterintuitive — or “So much Libburul Gobbletygook!”
It really doesn’t help somebody like Al Gore, Mr. Inconvenient Truth himself, is flashing around the world in his private jet, producing a lot more carbon (or so it seems to the average person with a decade or older pickup) than their poor vehicles are! Gore could have done wonders for his own cause had he mostly just stayed at home and teleconferenced as much as possible, and when he had to fly only flown on commercial planes — just like Bernie Sanders does. (I think only flying Coach is pushing it a bit, myself, but then I guess his knees and hips are in better shape than mine.)
All in all, though — yes, making it about pollution would pretty much have the same effect, and everybody can see how bad pollution is….
