As heatwaves and bushfire risks intensify, emergency language has shifted too. The challenge is to warn clearly without losing trust.

In early January, an elderly man was interviewed by an ABC journalist on Terrigal Beach on the New South Wales Central Coast. He was agitated, disagreeing firmly with the use of the word ‘catastrophic’ in relation to heatwave conditions and the potential for deadly bushfires. He provided a moment for us to reflect on the use of language in situations of potential disaster.

The man was suggesting that in Australia we have always had hot weather, and the modern approach to describing it amounted to exaggerating a well understood problem. In effect, he was saying, authorities and the media were imagining things; hot weather was part of the scene in summer, always has been, and we should just accept it. No need to hype it up.

This man – and there are many who share his perspective – was missing the point. Understanding of natural hazards changes over time, as do standards of dealing with it, and it should be no surprise if language follows suit.

Decades ago, awareness of heatwaves causing more deaths in this country than all other agents of natural disaster combined was lacking, although that reality has probably been the case for a long time. Moreover, atmospheric warming, even by seemingly small amounts, has almost certainly been exacerbating the problem.

Globally and in Australia, temperatures are on the........

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