This video was released as part of Bill McKibben’s global awareness-building exercise last week for 350.org, an organization promoting the idea that carbon emission levels above 350 parts per million are dangerous:
I’d like to treat this as a case study in visual metaphors and conceptual frames to show how insights into human cognition are vital for effective climate action.
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This video contains several innovative elements that are worthy of note. I’ll consider each in turn.
Visual Metaphors
Human thought is profoundly metaphorical. Our most basic concepts are grounded in the bodily experience and “abstracted” through metaphorical extensions. We understand knowledge through several bodily activities such as grasping (I get what you’re saying), seeing (That explanation is a bit murky), eating (I find that hard to swallow) and physical forces (Relativity theory just about blew my mind).
These metaphors are all conceptual. They are found in every human language. They are also involved in spatial and auditory reasoning. This video makes use of visual metaphors that are designed to make profound points through the experience of watching it. Here are a few of them I noticed:
Emotional (sexual) energy is physical heat.
A layer of clothing is one unit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The “natural state” of nudity is the “natural state” of our global climate system (undisturbed by global warming).
Each of these metaphors is activated through gesturing and movement. Thus it is expressed visually in the video. It becomes active in our language when we “put words” to them and articulate our understanding of these ideas.
Making Climate Action Sexy
A major theme of this video is that solving the climate crisis is a natural compulsion (another metaphor!) just like having a sex drive is an innate quality for human beings. It playfully asserts that engagement with the challenges we face in dealing with climate can be pleasurable and fun.
What’s more, the final moments of the video set up the pressure to “finish the job” and get those last two parts per million out of the way. A clear and powerful objective has been set up (for those who find supermodels sexy) to get down to “bare essentials” where these people most like to be.
Deconstructing the Fashion Industry
Each layer of clothing fits within the supermodel frame, meaning that the style of garments represent the glamor and extravagance of the fashion industry. As the models remove each article of clothing, they are promoting the idea that all these layers are not only unnecessary, but they are bad for us.
This puts the fashion industry in a precarious position. If all those layers of extravagance (metaphorically implied as causing the heating problem) are harmful AND unnecessary, we can and should return to simpler forms of pleasure (like sexual interaction with those who appeal to us and, by extension, other kinds of simple pleasures) that do not contribute to the disruption of global climate.
An Image Schema That Leaves (Some of) Us Wanting More
Another key insight about human cognition is that we have body-based concepts for using our bodies in the world. These include core capacities to maintain balance, move along a trajectory, recognize containers, and so on. Each of these capacities requires what are called “image schemas” or schematic concepts for acting out our plans in the world. Two key image schemas in this video are the BALANCE SCHEMA and the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL SCHEMA.
The BALANCE SCHEMA arises when we feel drawn toward or away from a physical object. The metaphor sex appeal is physical attraction makes this evident. We are “pulled” toward the things that attract us and remain “unbalanced” until we either resist the pull or make contact with the source of attraction.
The SOURCE-PATH-GOAL SCHEMA is set up throughout the entire video. As the models reveal that their intention is to remove articles of clothing in a continuing sequence, a trajectory appears in our understanding of what is going on that “leads to” the culminating point where the model is naked.
Those of us who find this end state desirable are left “unbalanced” at the end of the video. These people feel a compulsion to act. This forms the motivational drive to reduce carbon emissions. If, according to the metaphors involved, the only way to achieve the natural state of nakedness is to reduce carbon dioxide levels back to their undisturbed state, this compulsion will remain active and unbalanced until sufficient climate action has been achieved.
Being Evocative Through Controversy
Some readers will find this video offensive. There is plenty of controversy around the objectification of women, idolization of celebrities (including supermodels), and the use of sex to “sell” climate change.
I see these controversies as very effective from a marketing perspective. The two motivating tendencies for sharing this video – and it is clearly going viral at the moment with over 109,000 views at the time of this writing – are (1) people who felt good about the video and wanted to share and (2) people who were appalled at the video and felt the need to complain about it. Both of these tendencies are driving the viral spread of the video.
Closing Comment – Understand Your Political Mind
Every part of this analysis shows that human cognition has many central roles in the spread of ideas. It is vital that social change advocates of all stripes learn more about the workings of our minds and the political/cultural ramifications of this knowledge.
Update 1: I clarified the metaphor “emotional energy is physical heat” with “sexual” in parentheses to suggest that some viewers would read sexual connotations into it while others simply see it as a general emotional warming as the women go from feeling physically cold to being exuberant and energetic at the end.
Update 2: Check out the lively discussions of this article on Truthout, Identity Campaigning, and Dog Canyon. The reactions are dramatic and mixed, so they’re well worth the read!
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Hi Paul,
You’re right to point out that global warming actually promotes greater volatility in the climate system. But the notion that we’ll end up back in an ice age is not supported by the majority of climate models. We’ll end up with climatic turbulence (in the form of shifting weather patterns and a significant increase in severe weather events) but the chances of returning to patterns from the past are quite low. We’ve entered uncharted waters.
The big “wild card” is cloud feedbacks. Scientists have a very difficult time figuring out how many clouds will emerge at different altitudes, which makes it hard to know how the climate system will respond to the serious disruptions we’re causing.
One theory that is gaining some traction was put forth by William Ruddiman. He has studied paleoclimate (the deep history of the earth’s climate) and observed that – according to the orbital parameter theory of ice ages – the planet should have returned to an ice age starting around 5,000 years ago. What kept this from happening? His theory is that the spread of agriculture and the deforestation that accompanies it caused a kind of “slow global warming” that kept the earth from shifting back into an ice age.
If he’s correct, we’re very unlikely to have another ice age for tens of thousands more years.
Side Note: I did my graduate work in the atmospheric sciences and I studied cloud feedbacks in climate models before going on to study human cognition.
When climate change hits breaking point, stripping models will most probably have to put all those layers back on.
It seems that people have forgotten (or overlooked) that climate change will most likely lead to the next ice-age:
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98jan/climate.htm
Great article . Will definitely apply it to my site
See also the babe theory of political movements . I never thought this theory was to be taken seriously, but it explains a lot.
This ad is effective because males as a demographic are more opposed to climate change bills than females. On the other hand, if it tries to be too sexy it triggers a defensive reaction; whoa, aren’t we being manipulated?
I’m trying to imagine what a counterad would be like. I’ve seen one parody with the message, “are you going to agree with some goal merely because I’ve hinted at disrobing once a certain number has been reached?” The good thing is that the industry can’t really make a smart counterad– the coal ads tend to be bland and idyllic and focused on a vague feeling instead of a decisive goal.
Metaphorically it works too (although it certainly treads over a line–that’s a REALLY long ad!) So you feel more heat if you retreat to a lower number which means less heat-trapping gases? It’s a contradiction. It is taking the “less is more” meme and glamorizing it. While it probably won’t persuade a denialist, at least it introduces the idea that it is possible to reduce the world’s ppm level (which is still a far-fetched idea even to many in the climate change reform community). Also, I think the goal of the ad is even more limited: to raise awareness of the PPM number and the need to keep it from increasing.
The problem, based on my limited scientific understanding, is that reducing ppm’s would require a massive sea change; it’s not something like going on a diet and weighing yourself and seeing the gradual improvements. A 350 ppm target would require lots of planning and reengineering (and I say this as a climate change activist). Most climate change scientists would be satisfied just to prevent future increases in the carbon level. The problem with the ad is that it makes a very-hard-task seem relatively easy. Is it helpful for the climate change movement if reducing the PPMs is portrayed as “easy?”
I think glacier’s earth/woman metaphor is right on. Men are the ones with tools and industry and rationality; women are the ones who are supposed to be pretty and in touch with their emotional side. In this ad, the woman are the ones taking action; they are also striving (not the men). Men are serious; they have to work hard; they have to get their hands dirty. Women are focused on aesthetics and keeping things clean. The question becomes, which version of reality do you prefer: the aesthetic or the rational one?
finally, I expect this ad to be parodied a lot; will that make people forget the point of the original ad?
Hey Whit,
I’ve heard others react strongly to how skinny the girls are too, but only some viewers have this response. As Robin Chase said earlier in this thread, responses vary considerably because there is so much potential for evoking strong emotions in viewers – and those responses are highly individualized.
The same comment can be made about your use of the word “silly.” This video may come off as not serious and therefore, merely fooling around, and I’d agree if we’re referring to its tone. But the creative work that went into creating it was very serious indeed. And the innovative notion that serious creativity might lead to a playful theme in the art that is created is one of the most interesting elements for me in this video.
Best,
Joe
All in good fun I suppose. But my responses on watching
- This is silly
- The models are having more fun as it gets hotter
- Damn, if you’re skinny, you can wear a lot of layers without looking like you are
The problems for the message:
- Those who claim concern with climate change is silly
- Those who claim that we’ll enjoy a warmer world more, if it comes about
- Those who claim that the many layers of evidence (tree rings, ice cores) don’t add up to a real effect
Also, while at first there was the background question of whether the models would get naked, by the final layers they’d reached the point where it wasn’t such an issue, because the models used are so boyishly skinny that they aren’t what research shows the majority of men find most attractive when naked. It’s only with enough clothes on them that they have generally attractive proportions, since the clothes take the place of the lacking flesh.
This raises another message problem:
- Are those who want action against global warming proposing that we all, in cutting back the things we enjoy, become anorexic?
Really, if you look at this ad in terms of image schemas, frames, metaphors, cognitive blends, it’s a bit if a disaster. Of course, so is global warming. Not sure that helps though.
Hey Glacier,
Very interesting phenomenal account of your experience while viewing the video. It could be one of the conceptual models I described at work, although I wouldn’t be able to say based on what you said (more rigorous methods are preferable when making such an assessment).
Your observation about the metaphor The Earth is a Woman is very important. Humanizing the issue of climate change (and giving it a bodily presence we can empathize wiith) is vital for getting people to feel visceral connections at a personal level.
Best,
Joe
“global warming” is a myth.
the control-freak powers that be are trying to scare everyone into accepting the ‘new world order’.
the had to choose between more fictional terrorist attacks, global warming or an alien invasion from space [that shit-bag kissinger wanted the space invasion]
Hi all,
Just a few very non-technical observations here.
Hard to explain, but I felt physically hot watching the video. Funny how these things work – or maybe I’m very impressionable. So I felt literal relief as they progressively took all those layers off. Why they looked happier at the end made intuitive sense.
I don’t know if that makes people more aware of global warming issues, but it does seem to get under the (or at least some) viewers’ skins. So it does do something. Very intriguing.
The sentence “it feels good to use less” really grabbed my attention, and somehow got mixed with the feeling of relief from the heat in a way that felt, viscerally, like “using less brings relief”.
Another metaphor that nobody mentioned yet here, maybe perhaps because it is too obvious: the Earth is a woman. And right now she’s really, really uncomfortably hot.
Regards,
Luis.
Joe,
There’s a lot of interesting work being done in embodied cognitivism. But I don’t think any of it undercuts my point about the fashion industry or the heat/sex metaphor. If anything, it’s more “natural” to equate sex, or the possibility thereof, with heat, i.e. higher temperatures, global warming, etc.; so any campaign to metaphorize the opposite (let’s cool things off so that women strip off their clothes) goes against the grain of the “cognitive unconscious.” But all the more power to it.
On the other hand, as a piece of marketing, the video is great.
Cheers,
Adrian
Adrian,
The counterfactual example I mentioned (where one cognitive model is implied in referencing another) does not come from Lakoff’s work. It comes from the research of Mark Turner and Gilles Faucconnier. I recommend you read The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities or, if you haven’t the time for an entire book, just google conceptual blending and read some of their work.
The weakness in Lakoff’s theory you describe is more about a lack of understanding for where he’s coming from. George never says that it is always difficult to introduce a new idea. Rather he says that deep frames take time to build because they are integrally connected to a wide array of concepts and associated knowledge – thus making the neural wiring that embodies them into our brains “trained” to respond with them instead of some alternative circuit. Such complex circuitry is always well established in the brain and, in the absence of major crisis (where a person’s identity changes quickly), typically slow to change.
You might like to read up on the neural theory of language a bit, especially the work of Jerome Feldman, and not limit your concerns about neural computation and language to the specific realm of Lakoff’s research in linguistics.
Toward this larger goal, I strongly encourage you to read Raymond Gibb’s book, Embodiment and Cognitive Science. Gibbs discusses the cognitive unconscious as it fits with three levels of embodiment. The three levels are: neural embodiment (neurophysiology of conceptual thought processes), phenomenological embodiment (the parts of our sensory experience we have conscious access to), and the cognitive unconscious (all cognitive process that make consciousness possible).
This is a much bigger can of worms than should be opened here, but I assure you that my motivation to discuss conceptual models goes well beyond Lakoff’s work – although my understandings are quite compatible with his theories.
Best,
Joe
Just to quickly reiterate what I’ve said at Indications and Immanence, I agree with most of what you’re saying, but gently disagreeing that it poses any threat to the fashion industry, or that anyone’s opinion about the models (their thinness, etc.) is as good as anyone else’s. There are some criteria for judgment on that kind of thing, including the physical nature of the body itself (which has healthier and less healthy states) and the social and historical context of gender differences, bodily objectification, etc.
Since you bring in the notion of the “cognitive unconscious” here, I have to say that I’m not entirely convinced by the way that concept gets used by Lakoff, et al. Since I’ve written about this elsewhere (forthcoming in Environmental Communication journal in spring of 2010, in a special forum on Lakoff, cognition, etc.), I won’t say more here.
But your example of how the readers “got the heat transfer metaphor and are jiving on it” — even though they’ve reversed it — doesn’t tell us exactly what they got or how they got it. If it’s unconscious and intuitive, as you suggest, how could they be flipping it around to make a joke with it? Do you really think that somehow this metaphor has sunk in to some neurological level (as Lakoff suggests) even though rationally and consciously they are disagreeing with it? What could possibly prove that?
We do, after all, know what metaphors are, and just because I may have heard your metaphor, that doesn’t mean I’ve “unconsciously” accepted it (especially if I’m disagreeing with it or making fun of it). There’s a tension in Lakoff between this idea that bodily metaphors are actual neural structures lodged deeply in our “cognitive unconscious” — and are therefore difficult to change — and the idea that somehow we can create a new metaphor and put it in someone’s unconscious. It’s a real weakness in his writing, so I hope too much isn’t built on it.
On the whole, though, I think it’s a clever ad, and one that’s worthy of discussion and study (as you suggest). And I’m enjoying this exchange!
Best, Adrian
Adrian,
I would be careful not to read too much into the comment thread on YouTube. The important aspects of this video are not introspective, rational, or linguistic. The question is not what people say immediately after viewing it (which is mostly going to be filled with snark among those who participate in comment threads in public forums like that one).
It is important to remember that nearly all of the communication in this video occurs “in the body” through embodied concepts like the ones I described. So, for example, having someone joke that “global warming is a good thing because it will get the models to take off more clothes” actually confirms my point that they got the heat transfer metaphor and are jiving on it. The fact that they reversed the heat flow to make their jokes shows that they must have first gotten then implicit heat transfer model I described, then created a counterfactual (imaging a simultaneous scene where the flow was reversed and conceptually blended it with the one presented in the video) in order to make their joke.
This last point is very technical. The viewer who made that comment was creatively expressing a combination of body-based concepts. All of this was happening at an “intuitive” level – which means it involved cognitive systems that go beyond the conscious level. All of the cognitive mechanisms I described here are part of the cognitive unconscious meaning that they are embedded in parts of the brain-body system that we cannot consciously access, yet are implicated to be necessary for fully formed conscious thoughts to emerge with the structures they have.
As a different point about sub-cultures and conversation, I know that many of my “guy friends” when I was in high school and college made jokes about sex frequently and in a manner that others might call juvenile. This is very common among young males in our culture and it is a way for them to express their feelings about a sensitive subject in a social setting… when men and boys in the United States by and large are not taught a complete emotional vocabulary.
You can read more about this cultural phenomenon in the excellent book, Raising Cain: The Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson. It is an essential read for anyone who works with boys in our culture, which I did as a peer mentor for emotionally troubled kids a few years ago.
Another point is that, when dealing with emotion-based and body-oriented communication, you can’t take words at face value. The ultimate impact of this video for raising awareness about climate change and motivating people to take action must be measured in broader sociological and behavioral terms than the word content of chatter in its immediate aftermath.
(Oh, and I commented at your Indications blog to help build the discussion there too!)
I agree with Joe that the video is successful in generating discussion — which is exactly what was intended. But I also see that much of the discussion, on YouTube at least, has to do with the models’ physiques, with some of the commenters wisely noting that there is not enough physique to most of them, and others saying something like “if climate warming gets these models to strip, then let’s have more of it!” (which goes against your “heat transfer” model, I think, Joe).
And where it gets into climate change science, many, if not most, commenters simply deny that science or take this as an opportunity to spout off their anti-environmentalist and anti-Obama rhetoric. (Occasionally they are critical of Obama for the right reasons, too.)
So I would say that the proof of the video’s value is a little mixed. That it’s going “viral” is evident (though at some point we need to start measuring “virality” — and its long-term effects — in more useful ways). But that it “deconstructs the fashion industry” is, I think, wishful thinking.
I’ve posted a lengthier response, making these and some other points, at the environmental communication blogs Indications and Immanence. Adding (I hope) more controversy in the process, which contributes to its virality
Ruth,
You and your friends may be talking about feminist ideals, but many other conversations are happening at the same time. I have to agree with Robin that people bring their own interpretations to the medium (as is true for any piece of art). My wife hated this video, yet I found it compelling because it brings the climate message to audiences who don’t follow climate policy discussions closely. I also found it compelling because it’s so creative and cognitively engaging in all the ways I described.
There’s no “one size fits all” solution to global warming. Nor is there a single message tone to reach 6 billion people. This video will appeal to some, while turning off others.
What I find intriguing about the video is the widely, wildly diverging interpretations of whether it is sexy, innocent, or offensive in the way it portrays its message. It demonstrates a belief I have about how people come to the exact same situation, and experience/interpret it differently based on the lens they bring to it.
One of the model’s grandmothers, an 84 year old self-identified Christian, wrote and told me she saw nothing sexy or provocative in the video at all — pure fun. From the youTube comments, it is clear that a whole segment of men find the exact opposite. I’ve heard from some women that were surprised by the choice of ending underwear that was like “grandma underpants” and “training bras.”
The wide and strong divergence of opinions leads me to believe that the video itself does not have a sexy, or deprecating of women bias. People’s opinions reflect what prejudices they brought to the video beforehand.
I think that while it generates controversy, it loses the message. All people are talking about is the anti-feminist aspect of the vid, not the environment.
FAIL.
A friend commented to me offline that she thought my use of the Sex Appeal is Physical Heat metaphor was misplaced. It gave me the opportunity to point out another interesting feature of the video:
There is a model of heat transfer implicit throughout. As the CO2 level goes down, things “heat up” with the women taking off their clothes. In order for the energy to be balanced, the “sexual appeal heat” must go up as the atmospheric temperature comes down.
It’s a subtle conceptual model at work in the video… most of the viewer’s attention is somewhere else.