In the novel Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere, author Dr. Robert Cox discusses the role of visual and popular culture in the context of environmental communication. Cox explores the use of condensation symbols, defined by Cox in Chapter 4 as “a word or phrase…that ‘stirs vivid impressions involving the listeners’ most basic values’”. He continues by examining the effects that the image of the polar bear, as a condensation symbol, has had on the communication of environmental problems. In Photo 4.2, Cox’s caption prompts a discussion around this type of symbol:
[W]hat difference would it make if an image of a climate change refugee became the new condensation symbol? Do you think polar bears on broken ice are more visually resonant than people walking through floods? As more humans are impacted by climate disruptions, do you think the condensation symbol will change?
When considering a response, I immediately referred back to an earlier passage in the novel where Cox described the history of Yosemite Valley. Those living in early eastern America became infatuated with the majesty and unequaled beauty of the valley through photography, and in order for the area to be secured as a tourist area, the native indigenous people living in the valley were either killed or relocated. This history is vital to our understanding of how images of people and images of the environment interact within the public sphere.
The removal represents how the relationship between native humans and their habitat was deemed inferior to the “pristine nature” of Yosemite Valley. There exists a romanticism that many people hold with the environment. This belief, coupled with the common view that humans are the sole cause of its destruction, are the reasons why images of the environment that are void of humans are so attractive and so powerful. There is a tendency of humans to sympathize with the environment, as we believe we are its spokespeople. Therefore, I hypothesize that photographs of human lives put at risk by climate change will likely be viewed as self-imposed and will not stir as much public outrage as a polar bear who had little contribution to the effects that have altered its environment so drastically. As a result of this praise for the environment and the loathing of human actions, photographs of the effects of environmental disaster inflicted on humans will most likely never be more synonymous with climate change than the depictions of polar bears starving on increasingly smaller ice flows.
Personally, I would prefer a public sphere that values and celebrates the connection and the coexistence of humans and the world surrounding them. This view is beautifully illustrated in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s speech at the May 2000 EcoSummit conference:
We are not protecting nature for nature’s sake. We are protecting nature because it enriches us. It enriches us economically…It enriches us culturally, recreationally, aesthetically, spiritually, and historically…I do not want my children growing up in a world where we have lost touch with the seasons and tides, and the things that connects use to the ten thousand generations of human beings that were here before laptops, and that connect us ultimately to God. (Canadian Parliamentary Review 12)
Working through this other frame, a condensation symbol consisting of both humans and the environment would be incredibly influential and would more successfully contribute to the solving of vital environmental problems.
Works Cited
Kennedy, Robert F., Jr. “Who Speaks for the Environment?” Canadian Parliamentary Review 23.3 (2000): 12. Web. 20 Jan. 2017.
Cox, Robert, and Phaedra C. Pezullo. “Chapter 4 The Environment In/of Visual and Popular Culture.” Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2016. Print.
