"Climate change" is already watered down from "global warming", because people were nitpicking that it wasn't always warmer everywhere. Things like the late cold snaps people mention in this thread. But: on average, it's warmer almost everywhere.
"Global warming" is what you get when you let the scientists pick the name. "Climate change" is better but you can still get the sense that it's lacking in a solid PR person to figure this out. I'd have thought that, by now, any of the hundreds of corporations attaching themselves to Sustainability, Inc. would've solved this particular naming problem for us.
The term "climate change" usage had a PR person behind it. Republican strategist Frank Luntz pushed for politicians to use the term instead of "Global warming" has it sounds less severe.
The term is often misattributed to Luntz, but it existed before him.
