Climate Change Propaganda

 

 

An interesting article from the BBC homepage tells us about the problems of climate change propaganda, why images of polar bears are no longer considered the best ones to illustrate how the earth is being consumed by heat. What's of interest is that a website for the enlightenment of the general public has exposed how the perceptions of that same public are manipulated by special interests. 

"On the one hand, polar bear images can be a compelling tool to inspire donations from sympathetic audiences, says Pritchard. Similar to the panda, which became a beloved symbol for nature conservation and the mascot for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 1961, the polar bear became a hallmark for a world people wanted to protect."

Of course the people most interested in protecting the polar bear are the least likely to ever lay an eye on one. There are humans that have a reasonable chance of encountering a polar bear in their daily rounds. They sensibly try to avoid such a thing. If polar bears, or pandas, were wandering down suburban alleys, turning over waste bins and lunching on pet cockapoos there would be a bounty program on them. The reason that people are worried about their future is that they actually know little about them and never encounter them. Other wild animals that are occasionally seen in populated areas are regarded as a threat. 

So the climate change propagandists are changing their focus from bears above the Arctic Circle to people near the Equator. 

A company called Climate Visuals supplies the images needed in the new propaganda. The visuals may not exactly correspond to the issues presented but that isn't any more important than the graphics used to market soap or breakfest food. The operation is a sales job.

   "Telling new stories is also a key principle. "There's an issue with image fatigue. A lot of people will be familiar with polar bear images," says Johnstone. Moving away from tired images is a chance to offer hope. "If you marry emotionally powerful images with solutions-based photography, people have a more detailed connection to the image," he adds."

In other words, he's talking about "climate porn".