Vocabulary – Part II
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
Superfog
Earthen rivers
Debris flow
As the climate gets weirder and weirder, and extreme weather events combine to create even more extreme weather events, we are forced to get creative with language. The new terms are frighteningly evocative: it’s not hard to imagine the zero visibility-ness of a superfog, the sudden and destructive power of an earthen river, or how one should avoid standing in the path of debris flow. This is almost sci-fi territory – language dreamed up by a writer hoping to capture the essence of an alien reality. Except it’s not. It’s all too real.