TY - JOUR
T1 - Climate communication for biologists
T2 - When a picture can tell a thousand words
AU - Lewandowsky, Stephan
AU - Whitmarsh, Lorraine
PY - 2018/10/1
Y1 - 2018/10/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85054773649&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pbio.2006004
DO - 10.1371/journal.pbio.2006004
M3 - Article
C2 - 30300345
AN - SCOPUS:85054773649
SN - 1544-9173
VL - 16
SP - e2006004
JO - PLoS Biology
JF - PLoS Biology
IS - 10
M1 - e2006004
ER -
