MCF Seminar: The Visual Life of Climate Change

Imagine a foreboding photograph of factory smokestacks pumping out dark clouds of pollution, compared to a photograph of gleaming silver wind turbines in front of an ethereal golden sunset. Both images tell stories about climate change, but can make people feel completely differently about the issue. 

In this seminar, Professor Saffron O’Neill (Geography, University of Exeter, UK) presents results from her new book, The Visual Life of Climate Change. She draws on different types of climate images – from photographs to memes – and shows how these are produced, shared, riffed on and repeated across public life. Visual examples are drawn from across the climate space: from mitigation to adaptation, energy to climate science, from climate politics to protest. These examples will demonstrate how the images we use to tell stories about climate change fundamentally shape how we respond to the issue. 

The seminar concludes with a call to make climate visuals more representative, equitable and just. Ultimately, Saffron argues that we should look more critically at climate images; and at how they reflect and shape the world around us. 

About the speaker:

Saffron O’Neill is Professor in Climate & Society in the Geography Department, University of Exeter, UK. Her research explores the social science dimensions of climate variability and change, particularly focusing on communication and public engagement. Her research specialism is the visual communication of climate change. Saffron is founding Co-Director of the Centre for Climate Communication and Data Science (C3DS). She is also Co-Director of the ACCESS network (Advancing Capacity for Climate and Environment Social Science); and Co-Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in the Geography department at Exeter University.