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.”
Pascvaks says:
May 29, 2010 at 7:45 am Is this 1984?
Yes
and please remember that applies to almost every subject, in every media
so stay skeptical
universally so!
Mick J says:
May 29, 2010 at 7:46 am
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.
Mick.
It is my understanding that turbines have to be kept turning so the shaft doesn’t take a “set” from being stationary for a prolonged period with the weight of the blade assembly bending it. So, if you see a turbine turning very slowly it may not be wind moving it but electricity being fed into the turbine “works”.
IanM
DirkH
May 29, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Neutering is just PETA’s fallback position. The started out trying to convince the zoo to slaughter him.
DirkH said on May 29, 2010 at 6:43 pm:
http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
Yup, I got that URL memorized. PETA, saving animals from ever being abused by the only absolutely certain way…
Here’s an alternative “inspirational motif” for bio-fuel campaigning. That’s just an amateurish example though, I’m not that good with graphic programs.
http://www.wikio.es/video/fatal-accident-with-vulture-on-windmill-1885500
I am nominating the above youtube for consideration as the iconic image of climate change response.
What other fields of science needed a good PR campaign? Did Newton need one to advance his ideas of physics and calculus? Did Einstein need it for the theory of Relativity? What about the founding of Quantum Mechanics?
“DesertYote says:
[…]
Neutering is just PETA’s fallback position. The started out trying to convince the zoo to slaughter him.”
Yes, you are right. I knew about the activist who wanted Knut to be killed when he was a baby (and rejected by his mother) but i wasn’t sure whether it was a PETA activist.
But here’s an article that shows that the suggestion to kill Knut and the suggestion to have him castrated both come from Frank Albrecht, the german zoo animal expert of PETA.
http://www.thelocal.de/society/20100303-25621.html
These people are as reliably evil as GreenPeace.
Sorry, the link i gave only mentions Frank Albrecht of PETA in connection with the suggested castration, here’s another one where Frank Albrecht suggests the killing.
http://www.faz.net/s/Rub475F682E3FC24868A8A5276D4FB916D7/Doc~E8B8FD4D0944D4EB68BA4874C4F423464~ATpl~Ecommon~Sspezial.html
Just for completeness. We can’t make grave accusations without sufficient evidence.
A small and pedantic point, but if the sentence “This shows the variance of levels of climate change knowledge and understanding, which effects how people behave in response.” is as it was actually written by the good doctor, then we should ask for her Ph. D. back.
It’s “affect”.
Various thoughts.
The future could be in small nuclear sub sized nuclear power generation. The problem is with control of the fuel. Spreading it out in bits and chunks instead of maintaining control of larger chunks means that the chain of possession becomes weak and vulnerable to terrorist activity.
The decision related to huge wind turbine farms is based on corporate interest in controlling and benefiting from power generation of any kind. The guvmnt said that it will generate jobs. Hasn’t happened. The number of new jobs created with these large wind farms hasn’t made a dent in unemployment.
Why? It is small business that employs people and has the greatest potential of impacting unemployment. Therefore the idea of Dutch inspired windmills is not a bad idea to consider. This would generate a local industry geared towards making windmills for single household/apartment use and would generate another industry that would make appliances that are energy efficient enough to run off these local windmills (IE with internal storage capacity). Windmills are an off again on again item. So every appliance that runs off these power generating things would have to have energy storing capacity. The problem with this is that corporations will no longer be profiting from household energy use.
Everybody wants a large piece of the pie, and in some cases, desire to horde the entire thing.
By the way, my pic of large windmill farms would go like this:
A field of blenders stuff with birds waiting for someone to push “frappe”.
Well, if propoganda is the new science debate practice and windmills the new CAGW logo focus, what logo might we on the other side of the debate adopt? How about windmills danger to wildlife.(Perhaps the disquietening image of a couple polar bears that have been hit for six, flying through the air.)
Mike McMillan says:
May 29, 2010 at 10:04 am
My apologies for mangling the language up to the point that I offended your eye.
Back to the topic, this study/paper/opinion piece illustrates how bankrupt the “Green Movement” has become. This in effect is an open admission that the main thrust of the various “eco” organisations is more about raising funds than promoting their primary cause.
It reminds one of the tacky adverts on pay TV, you know the them, pay us cash or the kitten/child/seal cub/( feel free to add your own ) gets it. There was a time when the “eco” groups were all about, “Fighting the Man”, now their organisations are so large they are, “The Man”, consequently they spend all their time on self perpetuation and almost none on their Raison d’être.
The great shame is that the “eco” groups can’t grasp this basic concept.
My apologies in advance to Mike McMillan for my, doubtless, egregious abuse of the written word.
Mike M. May 29, 2010 at 7:13 am
“…Can someone please create an iconic image showing an eagle being beheaded by a windmill, please?”
How about a vulture getting wacked?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RcTjdY1aN4&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
Betapug (May 29, 5.21pm)
Thanks for the links. Mann is utterly without shame, irony or self-knowledge:
“Those in the scientific community who seek both to inform the public and to maintain their integrity, must, by contrast, play by the rules. Rather than engaging in the artifice of misrepresentation and cherry picking, we must find clever, simple ways to convey the facts. To do otherwise would constitute unilateral disarmament in this war.”
I didn’t realise until I read his article that the denialist machine runs focus groups to hone its disinformation. Anthony, where do they meet? Can I come along some time?
I have proposed via Tim Blair’s blog that we should form a Polar Bear rights Society and put them out of their misery of clinging to slushy bits of ice by shooting them dead.
At least she didn’t suggest pictures of cooling towers, with all that evil water vapour (aka steam) going into the sky. That’s the one the media loves to show / interspersed with polar bears.
Why don’t they show pictures of sunny beaches? AFter all, it’s going to get warm, might as well show everyone relaxing in the warm. Sure beats imagery of shovelling snow.
Someone should send Kate Manzo the URL for that video of a Griffon Vulture on Crete, which had its wing broken by a wind turbine. Is that sufficiently iconic for her?
Alexander says:
May 29, 2010 at 11:23 pm
Here’s an alternative “inspirational motif” for bio-fuel campaigning. That’s just an amateurish example though, I’m not that good with graphic programs.
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Superb. The last phrase makes a great bumper sticker too, especially with the picture as a lead in on the left.
David S says:
May 30, 2010 at 2:53 pm
“Those in the scientific community who seek both to inform the public and to maintain their integrity, must, by contrast, play by the rules. Rather than engaging in the artifice of misrepresentation and cherry picking, we must find clever, simple ways to convey the facts. To do otherwise would constitute unilateral disarmament in this war.”
I didn’t realise until I read his article that the denialist machine runs focus groups to hone its disinformation. Anthony, where do they meet? Can I come along some time?
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All the conmen and crooks I have caught were very quick to blame another, usually their victim, for the behavior they were practicing. The guy who is very quick to say “John Doe stole it” is usually the one who did the actual stealing.
CAGW bares all the earmarks of a con, including the “blame the other guy first for my actions”