Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland has all sorts of relevance in today's Dr. Lenny world. The very best chess site on the internet, Scheming Mind has many allusions to the novel, including a two board opposite number game. But the reference to the red queen is about words having specific meaning and this article dives into the subject full force.
"Climate change." This phrase was invented by the Republican pollster Frank Luntz, when he discovered that focus groups found the phrase "global warming" too scary. Climate change sounds nice and gentle, and evokes our latent awareness that the climate has changed naturally throughout history. Even "global warming" is problematic, since it makes us picture putting our feet up in the sun. The more accurate phrase would be "the unravelling of the ecosystem", "climate chaos", or "catastrophic man-made global warming." They're a mouthful, but they are honest.
The facts are that we talk past each other - not answering the questions that we have for each other by using concepts 'howdt of context'. The phrases that are used include waffle words like could and should, or or but that give the speaker an out from the meaning that is implied. We have to do something different.
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