We need to talk about the way we talk about emissions

Limiting the conversation to carbon is dumb for multiple reasons.

Stephen Markley’s climate epic The Deluge doesn’t open with a wildfire or a flood or a politician giving a speech about a 2050 net-zero pledge. It opens with a closeup of lattice-like structures on the ocean floor: methane hydrates. Crystalline cages of frozen water holding ancient methane gas under intense pressure.

The first character we meet is Tony P…