The power of imagery and its relationship to and portrayal of reality offers the public a window into distant locales that are experiencing the most significant consequences of climate change. Not only do images increase the exposure and awareness of the climate

 crisis, images have the power to convey ideas and global occurrences without the barriers of language. The struggling polar bear at the edge of receding ice has become an international symbol for the threat that global warming poses for nature. These visual representations make the climate crisis more believable to viewers and help promote better recall and the internalization of its causes and consequences.

Social media platforms have expanded the accessibility of environmental images. As a result, society’s exposure to and awareness of the climate crisis has greatly increased. Though images capture and document real life occurrences, the context and framing of these images have a significant impact on how viewers perceive these events.

It is exceedingly difficult for images to communicate both the achievability and the urgency of mitigating climate change. Representations of clean energy futures and environmentally beneficial political actions promote confidence in society’s ability to combat the climate crisis; such images, however, fail to effectively convey to viewers of the urgency and importance of the issue.

On the other hand, depictions of natural disasters and environmental degradation – dramatic scenes of roads being flooded and fires engulfing neighborhoods – show the public the consequences of climate change. But these imposing visuals reinforce how difficult it is for an individual to take action and stop climate change.

Such catastrophic images are alarmist. 

Using fear to galvanize the public is ineffective on its own. People struggle to connect on a personal level to these visual representations and this results in a lack of action. Studies show these alarmist tactics do not have long term effects, one citing responses to the movie Day After Tomorrow, where directly after viewing the film the majority of watchers claimed that “everybody has to do something about climate change”. However, one month later when they conducted focus groups, this sense of urgency had significantly diminished.

Recently, there has been an increase in the quantity of images that represent the built environment, focusing on people and the spaces they inhabit as opposed to images of animals and nature. This helps the viewer relate themselves to environmental actions and the broader consequences of climate change. Despite this, no one category of climate change imagery on its own can raise awareness, educate, and call for action all at once. This does not take away from the power of images, but it does necessitate careful consideration of the framing, context, and impact of climate change imagery.

The advancements and proliferation of handheld technology, such as smartphones, has allowed the general public to both document and see more of the environment.  In this age of social media, environmental activists must fight through the proliferation of visual imagery to raise awareness about climate change.