From a Eurekalert press release, it seems the polar bears just aren’t doing the job anymore: “Communicators need to move away from the traditional images of polar bears or fear-laden imagery to find new, inspirational motifs to engage people with climate change.”
Beyond polar bears? Experts look for a new vision of climate change to combat skepticism
Climate change is about more than just polar bears. That is the message from Dr Kate Manzo whose research into climate change communication has been published in Meteorological Applications. The research, which reviews the efforts of journalists, campaigners and politicians to engage the British public with climate change, explores how new ‘visual strategies’ can communicate climate change messages against a backdrop of increased climate scepticism.
“There have been various efforts to put a face on the climate change issue,” said Dr Manzo, from Newcastle University. “Communicators need to move away from the traditional images of polar bears or fear-laden imagery to find new, inspirational motifs to engage people with climate change. My research has uncovered a variety of possibilities – such as windmills as icons of renewable energy – as well as alternatives to documentary photography as the dominant form of climate change communication. Artists and cartoonists are among the producers of inspirational alternatives.”
“A recent study of American public perception showed that fewer people are convinced of the reality of climate change, and of those that are only 36% attribute it to human activity. This shows the variance of levels of climate change knowledge and understanding, which effects how people behave in response. It also highlights the need for strategies to boost the cognitive and behavioural elements of climate change engagement without resorting to methods such as fear appeals that are, at best, a double edged sword.”
In her study Manzo analysed the traditional standard bearing symbols of climate change, especially polar bears, which (like the images of the global poor that sometimes appear in relation to climate change) are traditionally cast as being ‘helpless’ and ‘stranded’ victims as their habitat changes around them.
The most famous example of a polar bear gaining iconic status is Knut, the cub from Berlin Zoo whose image was used so successfully for political and commercial campaigns that he became the biggest cash grossing animal of all time.
“Polar bears score highly in the so called identifiable victim stakes. Findings suggest that the image of a lone polar bear, like Knut, wins hands down in the affective stakes provoking feelings of pity and concern as well as charitable giving.”
But is it time for those communicating climate change messages to find a new motif? To answer this question Manzo studied recent charity campaigns, climate change photography and the framing of climate change articles in the press.
Dr Manzo suggests that icons of extreme weather and renewable energy are the standard alternatives to faces of climate change, with images such as windmills providing an inspirational approach to a climate change message which is inherently difficult to visualise.
“Visually pleasing images have indirect value when they allow organisations that use them to raise money for climate action and science. Icons of renewable energy, such as windmills, change the frame of reference from either business as usual or visions of apocalypse to possible strategies of mitigation.”
“All of these alternatives represent efforts to move beyond polar bears as the iconic representation of climate change and the visual sign of the so called ‘age of the melt,'” concludes Manzo. “The challenge is to use visuals creatively in ways that can address all three aspects of climate change communication, i.e. cognition, affect and behaviour, without enhancing a sense of fatalism and disengagement.”
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Ah. Paint political faith-based “stupid” in the colors of Shangrila. We all know how that movie turned out.
Steven – let’s play their game. Don’t call them “windmills”, call them “bird blenders”.
On-topic, I note the mention of Knut, who is no longer beloved of the left as he’s decided he’s not a vegetarian and that he likes to play with his food (to the eco-nuts horror). Nothing stays static in nature, including the climate around it.
This is one of many such articles of recent weeks. I was sent one by a friend – from The Environmentalist (Member’s publication of IEMA – Institution of Environmental Management and Assessment) –
This had the headline “How environmental managers can be persuasive in the face of increasing scepticism”. It cites the economic downturn, political failure at Copenhagen and “highly publicised errors and unfortuate mis-statements by a small number of climate scientists” that have been used to cast doubt on the entire subject of global warming an climate change mitigation as a challenge for those in the [AGW] field [to counter].
It proceeds to give advice on how to stay on message and overcome counterarguements:
“Don’t get bogged down in the science. The overall trends are clear.” But, it says, the uncertainty is in the magnitudes of the impacts and that action to reduce GHG emissions is akin to purchasing an insurance policy.
Yeah – a damned expensive one that we don’t need.
Kate Manzo seems to be another Polly Higgins: Hyperactive in various areas, probably not earning real money in any of them. Has her own website:
http://www.katemanzo.com/
Has written a novel, she brags.
Teaches Pilates, kickboxing and everything else for the modern city dweller:
http://www.positivelifestyletraining.co.uk/aboutus/
She’s also an academic, she brags. Political science.
2 books, her CV says. Having nothing to do with pilates but more with supression, human rights and so on.
It looks a lot like a data base mistake has merged several people into one, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. A kind of female Willis Eschenbach, only evil. (Evil because she wants to be a communication manipulator; i don’t like communication manipulators very much. YMMV if you’ve majored in political science).
Really reminds me a lot of those eco door mats Polly Higgins wanted to sell.
“Experts look for a new vision of climate change to combat skepticism”
Call me slow! Call me stupid! But when did we (or anyone else) elect these self-procalimed ‘experts’ to say squat about anything? I must have been asleep. Anyone who claims to be, or know, an “expert” needs to fess up and preface any remarks with a little justification for the use of the word ‘expert’. This is not unreasonable! Anyone can claim to be an ‘expert’. Anyone can introduce anyone as an ‘expert’. But there simply must be some foundation for the claim, Right? Left? Whatever?
We have really bastardized the language. Anything means anything anymore! Nothing means nothing anymore! What planet is this? What country is this? Did someone put LSD in the national water supply? This is wierd! This is insane!
We’re skeptics if we don’t believe an ‘EXPERT’?
Is this 1984?
One can only hope that the planned Government cut backs will result in the closing of such University departments, unfortunately it is likely real science will suffer whilst “add nothing” departments will continue to massage the message and their own job options.
As for cartoons, I have seen snippets of a Simpsons episode where Homer is sold a turbine with subsequent images of electric fans being used to turn the turbine.
P-lease, if anyone has a link to where this episode can be vieweded in it entirety. 🙂
Mick.
No, no conspiracy at all. They’re actually doing studies on how to market the AGW hoax! Nice. It doesn’t matter. The cat’s already out of the bag. They can use windmills, but I don’t think it evoke a positive emotion. Maybe if they go back to the poor seals, but that’s been done already.
“the so called ‘age of the melt’” I love this one!
to move beyond polar bears as the iconic representation of climate change
I think a chocolate ice cream cone would work. Can someone suggest this to her?
A proper definition of “climate change” might be a good starting point. I’m aware of diurnal changes in weather, as well as seasonal changes, but I’ll be darned if I can identify this thing called “climate change”. I recall skiing in 1955 and I went skiing yesterday in some excellent late season powder in the Sierra backcountry. In between I saw decades when the snows increased and decreased but overall nothing much has changed. Weather is still weather.
Notice how there’s no mention of the need to improve actual climate science. It’s all a matter of “better” propaganda and more devious marketing psychology to subject the masses to.
Disgusting…..
stevengoddard says: May 29, 2010 at 7:10 am “Windmills are destroying the UK countryside. Calling them inspirational is bizarre. Even the Kennedy family won’t allow them in their neighbourhood.”
Two slight corrections. Apparently the Kennedy family (and other wealthy families) have lost a battle, and the wind developer has won permission to proceed. Also, windmills are a welcomed site in many American farm communities. They represent a diversity to income and also a means by which government regulations transfer money from cities to rural communities.
The liberal elites, like this babe, need to get a life, after they obtain a real education. Imagine, having the time and resources to sit around and come up with this nonsense! To put the country back on the right track I would propose a new coin be minted:
Top side inscribed: Join Us and Prosper
Bottom side: Fight Us and Die
Make it out of gold to discourage our present fiat money. Perhaps an image of a machinegun toting Marine on one side and a mushroom cloud on the other. Now, this would be the proper imagery to portray. The Marine could be stomping on a spotted owl with industrial smokestacks in the background.
How’s that for a change of pace from the pinko, commie, bedwetter messages be sent by our present loser leaders? And I came up with all this creativity in my spare time, as a private enterprise (owned by me) supported individual with no federal funds or grants!
The problem with our side is that we are too politically correct and the lefties, on the other hand, are down and dirty street fighters who care nothing of science, truth or morality. Guess who wins in that kind of contest.
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm
Perhaps Dr. Manzo would like to do some real research and examine the graphs in the above site.
There she will find that at this moment her 3,000 iconic windmills (sic) are producing 0.2% of consumption and that we are importing 6.o% of our current consumption through the French Interconnector.
That will be reliable nuclear generation coming to our rescue, not the wind generation advocated for our salvation by green idiots in ex polytechnics.
Fortunately it seems that David Cameron has rescinded the grants to individuals wishing to site renewable generators on their properties because we are broke and can no longer afford such idiocies, thank God.
The latest example of crassness is planning applications to site residential sized hydro units in the nursery streams of Scottish Salmon rivers. I promise you!!!
There is nothing safe from the evangalistic fervour of the greens who seem hell bent on destroying species in thoughtless and ignorant pursuit of their collective mirage.
“The challenge is to use visuals creatively in ways that can address all three aspects of climate change communication, i.e. cognition, affect and behaviour, without enhancing a sense of fatalism and disengagement.”
So… having failed to pursuade with facts, figures and logic (less people accept warming and of the ones that do, only 34% accept AGW, her numbers not mine), the study of climate has now turned to the study of psychological manipulation through the use of imagery and subliminal messages designed to change cognition and behaviour. May I summarize?
“We’ve lied to their faces and they didn’t believe us. We will now lie to their subconcious and see if that works.”
An Inquirer says:
May 29, 2010 at 8:01 am
“………..windmills are a welcomed site in many American farm communities. They represent a diversity to income and also a means by which government regulations transfer money from cities to rural communities.”
Being a member of a rural American community, I know of no single person other than the direct recipient of the lease money for the windmills that “welcome” the windmills across our landscape. Further, most of the land used for the wind farms is owned by large corporate farming outfits. As far as the transfer of wealth, in any of the many rural communities I’ve ever been a part of, we are decidedly capitalists. There are, of course, exceptions. But for the most part, we’d just appreciate if the government kept their regulations and wealth transfer schemes to themselves and leave us out of their socialistic ventures.
An Inquirer,
Transfer monies to rural communities? What with farm subsidies on the chopping block its a good thing the local politico will be spared cutting costs by green tech which is so expensive to operate over any length of time local energy costs will have to soar off the bat as they indisputably DID in those oh so green EU member countries? Try reading less of the GE propaganda (be that published by themselves or the current incarnation of POTUS) and a bit more on what countries like Germany have already seen and documented regarding wind power. They haven’t stopped the expansion of such because they suddenly ran out of air movement within Germany’s borders. They haven’t built a brand spanking new massive nuclear storage facility out of a played out mine in Salzgitter because it’ll bring in the tourists or recycling old mines is eco-rrific! This is well documented in Germany but in America, as with most painful admissions, “You can lead some people to the truth but you can’t make them believe it!”
What was paid to this nitwit for this study?
I need to send away to a diploma mill for my PHD in Environmental Hysteria. Then I’ll ask for a 10M grant to interview Knut and get his reaction to all this.
So the public is developing emotional ploy fatigue and the marketers have to be more creative. Yawn.
The Earth Day episode I mentioned above looks to have the title “Family Goes Off The Grid”, available in the US on Hulu but not in the UK 🙁
“inspirational motifs”
Credit where credit is due…. no one comes up with better euphemisms than the environmental left.
The Audabon society will be the hurdle for the wind turbines. Bears are growing in numbers and are still being hunted with permits. The Prairie chicken population is down 80% and going extinct. It is not about the condor cuisinart action. The sounds, fighting and mating activities just do not happen around the turbines. Maybe a new Pickens Chickens will evolve and conduct a wind turbine compatible mating dance.
I’d laugh but these mongrels shill shame and pain.
Anyway to Ms Agony pants and her ad campaign, we can supply photos of dieing babies, unfortunately they wont be drowning, just starving coz their food is now bio fuel for her and all her caring mates. A dead kid in every tank.
60 to 70 % of people need re education after 15 years of pre education about evil.
Scientists need re education about evil.
Me I say BS to BS artists.
Surely the point about wind farms is that they require huge grants [tax payers money] to attract any interest in building them. They then have to be subsidised [tax payers money] for years so forcing up the basic price of electricity. They don’t work at peak efficiency very often. They require fossil fuel backup or they fail. They require expensive maintenance and don’t match coal/oil/gas fired outputs [cheaper by miles] in any way.
May they rust in peace. A Green disaster of huge magnitude. Ask the Spanish!
Farmers should produce food not watts.
Hi there. If any of you have a Reddit account then could you please upvote this comment of mine to prevent it from being buried? Apparently readers of the Reddit “Environment” section don’t like knowing what the CERES satellite says about their environment. 🙂
http://www.reddit.com/r/environment/comments/c957j/rightwing_group_seeks_to_strip_climate_change/c0qzqzt?context=3
The only thing they could do in response was to try to dig up some dirt about Roy Spencer. Attack the man, repeat the mantra, same old warmist tactics.
While all this talk of PR and propaganda and replacing scientists with cartoonists is all very funny, we do need to keep putting the facts out there, citing the sources, and refraining from the mudslinging at all times. If we are wrong, we’ll learn the truth from the data instead of from a ranting lefty. If we are right, then the straight talking approach should succeed in the end. Let the data tell the story.
I came in on DDT.
These clowns are still killing kiddies.