Images and symbols are powerful tools. We often recall a single, powerful image when thinking of a major historic event: the end of WWII, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the end of segregation. Imagery has the ability to represent purpose, significance, and unity. It is unfortunate, though, that climate change has come to be represented by polar bears on melting icebergs.
The use of polar bears and icebergs has perpetuated the idea that climate change is an event that will harm wildlife and nature – not humans. It has fuelled the belief that for each pipeline we approve and for each coal plant we construct, a whale or bear population will face substantial losses.
While true, this has had the disastrous result of altering the reality of climate change from a human issue to one of wildlife. It has created an apparent divide in the public eye: someone who supports action on climate change is an environmentalist or conservationist. In reality, most of us are humanists.
While rising greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change will force many species to the brink of extinction, for most of us the primary concern is humanity. We fear the economic and social impacts resulting from climate change, both now and in the future. We worry about the one to two metres of sea level rise expected by 2100, and how that will put us at risk in the developed world and millions more in extreme danger in developing nations.
We are concerned about severe freshwater shortages and their crippling effects on agricultural production and the provision of drinking water for millions worldwide. We see the looming famines, and fear the amplified rates of malnutrition and starvation that will further plague those already struggling.
We are uneasy about the prospect of increasingly severe and frequent storms, which will put human lives at risk and generate costly damages. We are concerned about heat waves, and the impacts they can have for those without access to cooling systems.
Most alarming are the estimates about the cost of climate change. The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy conservatively estimates climate change will cost Canada $5 billion per year by 2020, and may rise to $43 billion per year by 2050. Nicholas Stern, one of the world’s leading economists, released a report in 2006 estimating that damages from climate change may cost more than 20 per cent of global GDP each year. This is what we are alarmed about: the cost of climate change and how we, humans, will be impacted.
Some polar bears will indeed suffer, as will countless other species as the climate changes and ecosystems are altered. And while images of polar bears on melting icebergs might be appropriate for some, for the vast majority of us that study climate change, it couldn’t be more off the mark.
Climate change is a human issue. The longer we hold onto images of animals, the further we foster the perception amongst a fair portion of the public that this is a choice between saving polar bears or growing our economy. It’s really about saving ourselves. It’s time we adopt a new image to represent climate change — one with a human face.
