Climate communication for biologists: When a picture can tell a thousand words

Stephan Lewandowsky; Lorraine Whitmarsh

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.2006004

Climate communication for biologists: When a picture can tell a thousand words

Stephan Lewandowsky, Lorraine Whitmarsh

Department of Psychology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Pictures often tell a story better than the proverbial 1,000 words. However, in connection with climate change, many pictures can be highly misleading, for example, when a snowball is used to ridicule the notion of global warming or when a picture of a dead crop is supposed to alert people to climate change. We differentiate between such inappropriate pictures and those that can be used legitimately because they capture long-term trends. For example, photos of a glacier’s retreat are legitimate indicators of the long-term mass balance loss that is observed for the vast majority of glaciers around the world.

Original language	English
Article number	e2006004
Journal	PLoS Biology
Volume	16
Issue number	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2006004
Publication status	Published - 9 Oct 2018

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Neuroscience(all)
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)
Immunology and Microbiology(all)
Agricultural and Biological Sciences(all)

Access to Document

10.1371/journal.pbio.2006004Licence: CC BY

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