The terms “global warming” and “climate change” are used by many, seemingly interchangeably. But do they really mean the same thing?

        Scientists shaped the history of the terms while attempting to accurately describe how humans continue to alter the planet. Later, political strategists adopted the terms to influence public opinion.

        In 1975, geochemist Wallace Broecker introduced the term “climate change” in an article published by Science. In 1979, a National Academy of Sciences report used the term “global warming” to define increases in the Earth’s average surface temperature, while “climate change” more broadly referred to the numerous effects of this increase, such as sea-level rise and ocean acidification (酸化).

        During the following decades, some industrialists and politicians launched a campaign to sow doubt in the minds of the American public about the ability of fossil-fuel use, deforestation and other human activities to influence the planet’s climate.

        Word use played a critical role in developing that doubt. For example, the language and polls expert Frank Luntz wrote a memo encouraging the use of “climate change” because the phrase sounded less scary than “global warming”, reported the Guardian.

        However, Luntzi’s recommendation wasn’t necessary. A Google Ngram Viewer chart shows that by 1993 climate change was already more commonly used in books than global warming. By the end of the next decade both words were used more frequently, and climate change was used nearly twice as often as global warming.

        NASA used the term “climate change” because it more accurately reflects the wide range of changes to the planet caused by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

        The debate isn’t new. A century ago, chemist Svante Arrhenius started one of the first debates over the potential for humans to influence the planet’s climate. Arrhenius calculated the capability of carbon dioxide to trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, but other chemists disagreed. Some argued that human weren’t producing enough greenhouse gases, while others claimed the effects would be tiny. Now, of course, we know that whatever you call it, human behavior is warming the planet, with grave consequences ahead.

解析：B。根据题干中的NASA可定位至原文倒数第二段。该段表示，美国国家航空航天局使用“气候变化”这一术语，因为它更准确地反映了由于大气中温室气体数量不断增加而导致的地球大范围变化。由此可知，NASA选择使用“气候变化”这个术语是因为它更准确，B选项符合题意，其中的greater precision是对原文中more accurately的同义替换，故B项为正确答案。

错项排除：原文中未提及资金有关的问题，排除A项。原文中表示，政治战略家采用这些术语来影响公众舆论，因此政治需要与政治家的行为有关，并不是NASA选择使用这一术语的原因，排除C项。D选项利用原文中最后一段出现的debate一词作干扰，但原文中的debate存在于科学家之间，与NASA无关，排除D项。