The Crisis Crisis

Has the use of the word crisis become one?

I think we’re facing a crisis. I think we’re facing a severe crisis. The issue is the use of the word. Everything it seems is a crisis.

Here are what are said to be some of the most dire situations of recent years:

The climate crisis: Twenty years ago, Al Gore premiered the movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” I happen to be among those who believe that global warming is taking place and that human activity is the principal cause. But it wasn’t the crisis that Gore and his various admirers insisted it was. The former Senator and Vice-President said that the Arctic would be ice-free by 2013. Ten years later the amount of ice in the Arctic was equal to more than 4 million km². Contrary to his claims, lower Manhattan and Miami aren’t underwater, and there is still an abundance of snow on top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Hurricane frequency and strength have not increased, and the hundreds of millions of climate refugees he predicted would appear are nowhere to be found.

Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: Cooking up a new crisis with his boss.