Real political consequences
Imagery can make climate change visible and vivid, tangible, focused, and emotionally compelling, as well as linking solutions to a future that people want.
This clearly counts, given the very real political consequences if climate change is:
- invisible
- intangible
- unfocused in the public mind;
and when
- a vision is unclear or unappealing
- the issues are presented without emotion.
Powerful images generate ‘political energy’ and provide a focus for political action: often action is organised around images.
This energy and focus is felt both in the climate movement and also in public debate and discussion.
Some examples:
(1) Making climate change visible and vivid
The climate movement relies on being able to make the issues visible and vivd.
Lack of visibility stands in the way of creating the kind of political climate that is needed to bring about change—for any political issue. Visibility matters for getting issues onto the political agenda and generating political will.
Even when extreme weather events do make the issues visible, for many people, the causal connections involved can remain ‘invisible’—or at least unclear.
Making climate change visible is a first step:
what are the best examples of how the complex issues of climate change are being ‘translated’ into images that make them visible and vivid as well?
(2) Making climate change tangible
Tangible images—on themes such as bushfire, bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, natural areas and farmland damaged by coal mining, and a ‘river on fire’—highlight what is at risk, and demonstrate how climate change and continued reliance on fossil fuels threatens the prospect of “more of this, more often”.
When conservative politicians tell people that a Sunday roast will cost $150 if there is a price on carbon, they have translated the technical and abstract details of climate policy into something immediate that people can relate to.
During the Rudd-Gillard-Abbott era, the Coalition’s imagery of roast dinners and taxes on vacuuming prevailed against the more abstract and rational arguments made by the government.
(3) Focusing the issue
It is possible for climate change to be visible and tangible without being focused in the public mind. Climate change may ‘exist’ as an issue we are vaguely aware of, and its causes and solutions may not be clear or compelling.
Alternatively, it can have the kind of clarity and immediacy that creates a sense that
- ‘this matters: we need to respond’.
- ‘this is dangerous, and right here, I can see the link between cause and effect’.
(4) Projecting a vision of the future
What does the future that we want look like?
And how clear, powerful, and appealing are the images of this future?
As well as drawing people into the movement, visions of the future establish a sense of a ‘new normal’, project an image of power in the face of a sense of powerlessness, and create a shift from seeing climate policy as (for example) being job-destroying to being job-creating.
(5) The emotional power of images
Emotion matters for responding to climate change, given its importance for
- the ‘will’ part of political will,
- the ‘move’ part of ‘climate movement’ and for
- the inspiration, motivation, commitment and momentum that are necessary to achieve change.
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All these are fundamental to creating a political climate where the climate movement’s goals can be achieved, as well as overcoming and counteracting factors such as:
- the power of the fossil fuel lobby and the conservative media
- lack of political will
- lack of vision
- the way that politicians and the media can (and do) stir up public fears—by focusing for example on immigration, crime, ‘law and order’ and terrorism—warping the ‘political climate’ in a way that presents a key obstacle to achieving the climate movement’s goals.
Some examples
