Diego Arguedas Ortiz encouraged this when he blogged on 19 November 2018 for the BBC. He holds a Bachelor in Science from the Department of Geography, King’s College London. So perhaps we should take him seriously when he talks of the images we have in our minds about climate change. He thinks photos of polar bears don’t have sufficient impact. We should humanize climate in human interaction if we want the world’s attention, he says.
Why We Should Humanize the Climate Story
Who could ever forget the iconic photo of the naked Vietnamese girl fleeing from napalm in 1972? Photos of smoke coming out of coal power plants just don’t cut it compared to that. And a polar bear still looks cute when teetering on the remains of an ice sheet.
“That’s problematic”, psychologist Adam Corner explains. “Images without people in them are unable to tell a human story.” Do you think this lack of imagery is why so few people pressure their governments to take action? It is increasingly evident we should humanize the impact of global warming on ordinary people. People like you and me.
We Would Need to Change the Media Focus
You see, the media rely on advertising to pay their costs. Our internet subscriptions and the few dollars we pay at newsstands are small change in their corporate world. Breaking news stories drive media impressions and turbocharge advertising revenue. Yesterday’s news belongs in the recycle bin.
And that’s precisely what climate change has become in the world’s mind; yesterday’s news. Humans can get accustomed to almost anything, including extreme weather events elsewhere. We should humanize today’s news by streaming the direct impact of extreme weather on people.
That’s people like you and me, especially small children who may find the living impossible after they reach seventy. And all that’s left of downtown New York is waves breaking over the Statue of Liberty until they extinguish the light.
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