Global Warming or Climate Change?

Here’s a video to watch so you’ll be prepared the next time some idiot tries to tell you that the IPCC started using “climate change” instead of “global warming” because the warming stopped in the last decade. Actually you probably don’t even need to watch the video as this claim is self-evidently stupid since

  1. Warming hasn’t stopped (note that’s 3 different links). We’ve just finished the hottest decade on record, yet there are still people claiming that it’s cooling.
  2. The “CC” in IPCC stands for “Climate Change”. The IPCC was formed in 1988.

It is a good video though, so watch it anyway
[youtube mqMunulJU7w]

See further commentary on this from Joe Romm and Greenfyre.
By the way, the answer to the question in the title is that (as you can see from the video) both terms have been used by scientists for a long time, for most purposes they are interchangeable. Deliberate use of “Climate Change” as a less scary term has however been a tactic employed by Republicans who want to delay action on it.