I’m Anna Stevenson, the Word Watcher. The heatwaves that dominated the summer months in many parts of the world this year have prompted me to look at some words and terms relating to climate change that haven’t yet made it into the dictionary.

Such heatwaves, along with flooding and wildfires, are making some places feel less like home and more like a place of danger. Many individuals and communities are now being forced to consider climate migration – moving to another area, city, or even country, whether temporarily or permanently.

Climate migration isn’t a future problem. It’s happening now. More than one in five people in France believe they may need to move in the next decade due to climate change.
[pharosproject.eu, 16 January 2026]

Some people seek out a climate haven: a place that is relatively sheltered from the worst impacts of extreme weather, at least for now.

He works to dispel this mythology of climate havens. “There is no such thing as a climate haven,” he writes, “there are merely better and worse places to live.”
[fastcompany.com, 17 July 2026]

So climate change is affecting where people can live and where they want to live. It has also led to some new terms to describe how people feel about what’s happening. One emotive term that has emerged is climate vandalism, used to criticize actions or decisions that are seen as knowingly damaging to the environment, even if they are economically beneficial.

Is expanding North Sea oil production climate vandalism or the key to lowering energy bills?
[Power Struggle [podcast], 6 August 2026]

An Edinburgh Greens MSP has blasted plans to expand Edinburgh Airport, labelling the move “an act of climate vandalism”.
[www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com, 22 September 2026]

Also stirring up feelings of anger is climate hushing or green hushing, the reluctance on the part of a political party or company to discuss environmental issues for fear of losing votes or customers.

“Climate hushing,” as it’s now being called, is the cowardly act of not talking about climate out of fear that it’s not going to win you any political points.
[thehill.com, 31 May 2026]

Green hushing is a nuanced but rising phenomenon that entails undercommunicating climate commitments. Most green hushers are driven by fear of scrutiny or the prospect of losing consumers due to the stigmatisation of their green credentials.
[climatalk.org, 13 March 2026]

The negative effects of a warming planet can lead to feelings that go beyond anger: climate grief describes the anxiety and sadness people feel as they watch familiar things change or disappear: certain species decline, a favourite landscape is damaged or destroyed, summers become frighteningly hot.

Climate grief is grief about what has already been lost: glaciers that have melted, species that have gone extinct, forests that have burned, coral reefs that have bleached, and the particular versions of places that existed before climate change altered them.
[climatalk.org, simplypsychology.com, 31 May 2026]

You may also have encountered the word solastalgia. Coined in 2003, it isn’t particularly new, but it is a lovely word for that same feeling of emotional pain caused by the environment changing beyond recognition.

While researching these words, I’ve been reminded how quickly language is having to evolve to describe a world in which extreme weather is becoming part of everyday life. And not just the English language, of course: did you know that this year the Japan Meteorological Agency coined a new word to describe a day when the temperature reaches or exceeds 40 ºC? Japanese already has specific words for days when temperatures reach 25 ºC, 30 ºC, and 35 ºC but with 40 ºC temperatures now regularly recorded, it was decided that a new word was needed, and so kokushobi, meaning ‘severely hot’ or ‘brutally hot’, joined the language.

Join me next time for something a little more light-hearted: a glimpse into the world of dating and romance.