PopTech

Think fast.

What’s the first thought that comes into your mind when you see “climate change”?

What’s the first thought that comes into your mind when you see “car crash”?

If you are like me, “climate change” conjures a vague image of melting ice and perhaps an image of a forlorn polar bear on a shrinking ice floe, while “car crash” produces a vivid image of twisted metal and broken glass. I’m fortunate because in the specific crash that comes to mind my son totaled his car but walked away uninjured. For many people the image will be much more tragic. By contrast, I suspect few, if anyone, immediately associate “climate change” with a specific image of someone they know who was injured or killed.

Now think slow.

As someone who studies climate change I can produce a litany of statistics: The 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998, more than 30,000 people died in the 2003 European heat wave, record floods in Pakistan displaced million of people in 2010. But this takes work. In fact, I had to look up each of these statistics to make sure that I remembered it correctly.