‘Solastalgia’ the Next Liberal Buzzword

Bob McCarty makes an interesting point below but the idea that people dislike a warmer climate and move away from it is rather laughable. All the former New Yorkers in Boca Raton must be confused. I myself was born and bred in the tropics -- as were all four of my grandparents -- and I can heartily recommend the relaxed life of the tropics

Remember when the word, gravitas, entered the public conversation for the first time? Well, stay tuned, because solastalgia is next.

A rarely-used 131-year-old word at the time, according to Merriam-Webster, gravitas was introduced en masse to the American vocabulary by members of the liberal media within 24 hours of President George W. Bush’s selection of Dick Cheney to be his vice presidential running mate in July 2000. Almost always used with negative connotations, it was used to describe what “W” was said to lack in terms of experience and what he needed in a running mate. Rush Limbaugh even devoted a segment of his radio show to the mainstream media’s “discovery” of the word.

Eight years after its introduction, gravitas was declared dead and, for almost two years, nothing had surfaced to take its place in the American vocabulary. Then solastalgia arrived just in time for heated debate to begin on Capitol Hill about the so-called “Cap and Trade” legislation.

Solastalgia is a new word that appears in a recently-released report (see Sec. 1, page 38) from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Interagency Working Group on Climate Change and Health. It’s defined as “place-based distress caused by the effects of climate change due to involuntary migration or the loss of connection to one’s home environment.”

Despite the fact that, according to Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), climate change is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”, I predict members of the mainstream media will begin using it soon — and with fervor — as if it has existed since the beginning of time.

Despite the fact that Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary doesn’t even list the word, I predict it will become as mainstream as gravitas during the next few years.

Stay tuned for solastalgia.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).