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Political Geography 31 (2012) 481e494

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Political Geography

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Earthworks: The geopolitical visions of climate change cartoons

Kate Manzo*

School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK

Keywords:Geopolitics and visualityClimate change communicationPolitical cartoons

* Tel.: þ44 (0)1912226454.E-mail address: Kate.Manzo@ncl.ac.uk.

0962-6298/$ e see front matter � 2012 Elsevier Ltd.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2012.09.001

a b s t r a c t

This paper asks how climate change cartoons work to communicate geopolitical visions of time, spaceand power. I make the argument that visuality is integral to climate change communication in ways thatare frequently paradoxical. Dominant visual forms of evidence and iconic images help to make climatechange real while simultaneously impeding full understanding of the debates and issues around climatechange. In this context, at a time when visuality and climate change discourse have become co-constitutive, the paper explores the capacity of political cartoons to effectively represent the geopoli-tics of climate change. The empirical focus is the data set of cartoons submitted in 2008 to an interna-tional political cartoon competition called Earthworks. The entries collectively represent differentgeopolitical visions of climate change. They also suggest a critical role for cartoons in climate changecommunication e not as purveyors of visual evidence of climate change but as effective forms of visualcommentary on the relations of power and knowledge within which climate change communication anddebates are located.

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Introduction

This paper is about geopolitics and visualitye specifically, aboutthe geopolitical visions that are communicated in climate changecartoons. The geopolitical significance of cartoons is already rec-ognised in political studies and popular geopolitics. As visual formsof geopolitical texts, cartoons are “powerful sites and sources ofpopular geopolitical representations” (Dodds, 2010, p. 2).

This paper aims to link to a broader literature on geopolitics andvisual culture by showing, firstly, how visuals are integral to climatechange communication. Secondly, I explore more broadly themeaning and status of visuality in relation to climate changecommunication and debates. My central argument is that, when itcomes to climate change “our increasing dependence on the visualto comprehend and represent the world around us” (Macdonald,Hughes, & Dodds, 2010, p. 2) is frequently paradoxical. That isbecause the dominant forms of visual evidence used to makeclimate change real simultaneously impede our ability to fullyunderstand it as an invisible, temporally complex and contestedconcept that is often caught up with geopolitical narratives.

At a time when climate change discourse and visuality havebecome co-constitutive e like geopolitics and visual culture moregenerallye the complexities of climate changemake its visualisation

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not only challengingbut alsonecessary. The issue here is notwhethervisuals can accurately represent the reality of climate change butwhether they can effectively represent the geopolitics of climatechange. This issue, plus the paradoxes associated with dominantvisual forms such as photographs, prompted the question of howpolitical cartoons work to communicate geopolitical visions ofclimate change. Prior studies have examined climate changecommunication in fiction films (Leiserowitz, 2004) and art exhibi-tions (Doyle, 2011; Miles, 2010), so cartoons are clearly not the onlyoption. However, cartoons arguably remain “an under-utilised focusfor research in terms of exploring and interrogating representationsof politics” (Dodds, 2010, p. 3). The fact that cartoons (such as the onein Fig.1, below) often express serious concerns through “humour andparody” makes them no less worthy of “reflection and scholarlyengagement” (Dodds, 2010, p. 15). My later analysis shows none-theless that cartoons do not have to be funny to be effective.

The paper’s empirical basis comprises cartoons submitted in2008 to an international political cartoon competition calledEarthworks. This focus not only provides a large data set of cartoonswith which to work; it also follows recent suggestions to broadenthe focus of cartoon research away from historically conventionalsites of publication (i.e. from newspapers and magazines to othermedia sources) and to move beyond “the world of Euro-Americancartoonists and performers” (Dodds, 2010, p. 16). Cartoonists fromEurope and the Americas are certainly included in the data set, butso too are cartoonists from a large number of countries on othercontinents.

Fig. 1. Untitled. Bethseba Ayu, Indonesia.

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The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. Part onereviews a body of literature on geopolitics, visuality and politicalcartoons, with particular emphasis on “the communicative powerof cartoons” (Kleeman, 2006, p. 145). This is necessary to helpstructure the analytical framework and interpretation of theprimary data presented in part three. I show here that althoughpolitical cartoons are still often published in popular print media,substantive content is more important than the original source indefining a political cartoon.

Part two aims to show, firstly, how visuality works in relation tothe multiple discourses that frame climate change as “a reality, anagenda, a problem and a context” (Brace & Geoghegan, 2010, p.285). A further aim is to demonstrate the fundamentally geopolit-ical character of climate change by showing how debates aboutclimate change discourse and visuality sit within a nexus of broaderquestions about power and knowledge.

The Earthworks cartoons are analysed in part three throughquantitative content analysis and visual discourse analysis.Consideration is given to both the subject matter of the images andto the cartoon codes and visual languages through which geopo-litical visions are communicated.

The findings suggest that cartoons can indeed play a significantrole in climate change communication, by facilitating under-standing (the educative role), raising awareness, representingdifferent perspectives, and providing political exposure, commen-tary and critique. This raises questions about how to incorporatecartoons into climate change communication at a time of increasing(often paradoxical) dependence on other visual forms.

In conclusion, I suggest (following El Refaie, 2009; Kleeman,2006) that a useful first step would be to introduce climatechange cartoons into the classroom, to engage young people withthe issues they raise. As well as addressing debates within climatechange communication, this would answer broader calls inpopular geopolitics for further research into audience reception ofimages, thus contributing to an ongoing project on “the relation-ships between power, representation and audiences” (Dodds,2010, p. 4).

Geopolitics, visuality and political cartoons

Critical geopolitics has been described as a project thatconceives of geopolitics “as a discourse located within a nexus ofpower and knowledge” (Dodds, 2010, p. 2). This paper sits withintwo overlapping and complementary sub-fields of that broaderproject. One is geopolitics and visuality, which explores the rela-tionship between visual culture and contemporary geopoliticalpractice (Campbell, 2007; Macdonald et al., 2010). The other ispopular geopolitics, which focuses on “the expression of geopolit-ical power through popular culture and everyday life rather thanthrough channels of ruling elites” (Macdonald et al., 2010, p. 13).

The scholarship on geopolitics and visuality argues that visualsare important because “contemporary geopolitical reasoning oftenrelies on a presentation of visual evidence” (Macdonald et al., 2010,p. 4). Furthermore, this literature raises questions about how vis-uality works, to what end, and with what consequences. Asexpressed by Campbell (2007, p. 379), for example, the key issuewith images is “not one of accuracy and appropriateness. It isa question of what they do, how they function, and the impact ofthis operation”.

This paper extends these insights and questions into the realmof climate change communication and visualisation, beginning herewith an overview of how cartoons work theoretically as a visualform.

Cartoonsmay be read through popular geopolitics (Dodds, 2010;O’Tuathail & Dalby, 1998) and as forms of geopolitical iconography(Dodds, 1998). They have been defined as: a type of symbol(Diamond, 2002; El Refaie, 2009); a form of visual news(Greenberg, 2002); a kind of visual communication (Harrison,1982,pp. 1e3; Ridanpaa, 2009); a sort of cultural history (Clough, 1982,pp. 1e3); a form of political satire and social commentary(Kleeman, 2006) and a mode of expression (El Refaie, 2003).Despite the definitional differences, there is a general sense thatcartoons are a form of visual expression and communication.

The description of cartoons as a “distinctive form of artisticexpression” (Kleeman, 2006, p. 144) begs the question of what

K. Manzo / Political Geography 31 (2012) 481e494 483

makes them different from other artistic visual forms such aspaintings. A classic study of “the cartoon code” by Harrison (1982,pp. 1e3) highlights three processes of communication, namelylevelling (or simplification), sharpening (of personal features) andexaggeration. Dodds (2010, p. 6) mentions “condensation, repeti-tion, dramatisation, exaggeration and the caricature of leadingpersonalities”. Other cartoon processes are personification (ofobjects) or anthropomorphism (e.g. the planets as people in Fig. 1),objectification, analogy, and domestication or familiarisation.

Cartoons also use symbols or visual metaphors. The term‘geopolitical iconography’ refers to those designed “to representinternational political events” (Dodds, 1998, p. 171). Metaphors areused more generally to represent invisible concepts (El Refaie,2010). Take for example smoothness, a concept discussed bycartoonist Steve Bell (in Slattery, 2010, p. 1) to explain some notabledrawings of David Cameron, the current UK Prime Minister:

“When I first drew David Cameron at a party conference I sawsmoothness and a distinct air of plausibility. He was going tocut the deficit, not the NHS [National Health Service]. Totalmoral opportunism combined with a complete, engorged anderectile sense of his own responsibility. Thus it was that thecondomunrolled over his smooth head. It seemed so perfect andso apt, to me at least, and so after some initial opposition, Ielected to run with it”.

Imaginative symbols and metaphors thus enable the cartoonvisualisation of concepts that e like climate change e are invisible.Furthermore, cartoons can construct fantasy scenarios and imagi-nary worlds through the “metaphorical combination of the real andthe imaginary” (El Refaie, 2009, p. 186). This means that cartoonshave rich potential as geopolitical texts even if they fail to providevisual evidence of climate change.

Cartoonists sometimes rely onwritten text to get their messagesacross. Harrison (1982, p. 2) describes “the thought balloon or thespeech balloon” as “the stars of cartoon symbolism”. Kleeman(2006, p. 150) further notes that cartoonists might use captions tosupport “the cartoon’s non-verbal elements”. As shown in partthree, however, cartoons can convey geopolitical messages withoutany words at all (not even a title in some cases). So while writingcan be useful it does not define the cartoon form in the sameway assymbols, metaphors, and the cartoon code. Nor does writing definethe cartoon as a text, i.e. as a form of discourse as opposed to simplyan amusing or entertaining form of artistic expression. Cartoons,put simply, can be storytellers without words.

Concerning political cartoons in particular, there is a generalassociation of these with both location in print media and politicalcontent. Kleeman (2006, p. 144) notes that the term ‘cartoon’ hasbeen used historically “to denote a humorous or satirical illus-tration published in newspapers and magazines”. Similarly ElRefaie (2009, pp. 184e185) defines a political cartoon as “anillustration, usually in a single panel, published on the editorial orcomments pages of a newspaper”. These are cartoons that“address a current political issue or event, a social trend, ora famous personality, in a way that takes a stand or presentsa particular point of view”.

Studies of the cartoons published originally in print mediareflect that association between political content and location. Forsome, the type of newspaper is central (Diamond, 2002) whereasfor others it is particular cartoonists. Englishman Steve Bell hasbeen discussed by Plumb (2004), Dodds (1996, 1998, 2007) andEngelen, Hendrikse, Mamadouh, and Sidaway (2011); the Pales-tinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali by Najjar (2007); and South AfricanJonathan Shapiro (pen-name Zapiro) by Bal, Pitt, Berthon, andDesAutels (2009), Daniels (2010), Dodds (2010), Hammett (2010),Hart (2006) and Koelble and Robins (2007).

I would argue, however, that location does not define a politicalcartoon (any more than a speech balloon defines a cartoon per se).Popular newspapers can make cartoons widely accessible, but sotoo can other media and cyberspace. Studies of the global furoregenerated by twelve cartoon depictions of the Muslim prophetMuhammad that were first published in the Danish newspaperJyllands-Posten demonstrate the potency of the Internet as a vehiclefor dissemination (Muller, Ozcan, & Seizov, 2009; Ridanpaa, 2009).

Those Danish cartoons further attest to the “global conflictpotential of visuals” (Muller et al., 2009, p. 28) and the destructivepotential of ‘black’ humour (Ridanpaa, 2009). Other controversialimages, such as Zapiro’s series of cartoons of South African Presi-dent Jacob Zuma as a rapist,1 further illustrate the potential to causeoutrage and offence. However, the same is true of commercial‘shockvertizing’ images (see for example Ash, 2008) which useshock-value in advertisements but are not inherently political. Sowhile some degree of humour (through parody, satire or caricature)can raise awareness and draw attention to “politically seriousmatters” (Ridanpaa, 2009, pp. 729e733), cartoons are not neces-sarily funny. As ways to raise awareness and/or move viewers toaction, political cartoons can run the gamut from deliberate prov-ocation or shock to gentle persuasion.

The content is thus of greatest significance in identifying polit-ical cartoons. As El Refaie (2009) suggests, political cartoons arethose that address a political issue in a particular way e by sendinga message, taking a stand or presenting a viewpoint. Cartoons canlampoon politicians and highlight their hypocrisy (Ridanpaa,2009); they can provide political commentary and critique(Dodds, 1996, 1998, 2007, 2010; El Refaie, 2009); and they can offer“resistance to the abuses and excesses of power” (Hammett, 2010,p. 89). Key political themes are therefore exposure, commentaryand critique.

To qualify as geopolitical as well, political cartoons must alsocontain a spatial or scalar dimension. The Apollo space image of anearthly globe or sphere is an obvious example. It is such an iconicrepresentation of global space (as shown by Cosgrove, 1994, 2001)that it often either features in, or is used to promote, documentaryfilms about the global environment such as An Inconvenient Truth(2006) and The 11th Hour (2007).2 Spatial scales can also be rep-resented through absence as well as presence (i.e. the absence ofnational or cultural symbols to connote global space) and throughmetaphors or analogies. For example Dodds (1998) shows how animage of fenced-in domestic gardens has been used by Steve Bell tosignify nation-states in international space.

In sum, political cartoons are a form of visual discourse andcommunication. They are not defined by either location in news-papers or the unity of image and text. All cartoons work throughtheir own communicative codes as well as imaginative symbols andvisual metaphors. Political cartoons are those that suggesta particular perspective, point of view or commentary on a topicalissue, event or trend. While they do not necessarily have to appearin popular newspapers, they do emerge in particular contexts.Context inevitably shapes not only the subject matter of cartoonsbut also the capacity of viewers or ‘readers’ to understand theircontent and interpret their messages.

In the third part I draw on these insights to structure the anal-ysis of Earthworks cartoons. Before then, it is important to note theanalytical challenges posed by engagement with cartoons e thevery strengths of which can also be weaknesses. A virtue ofcartoons is their ability “to present often complex issues, eventsand social trends in a simplified and accessible form” (Kleeman,2006, p. 145). At the same time, the cartoon code risks over-simplification in addition to unfair caricature and racist or sexiststereotyping (Harrison, 1982, pp. 1e3). Cartoons’ visual languages,furthermore, can be ambiguous or culturally opaque.

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Understanding of meaning requires familiarity with the cartoongenre as well as the cartoonist’s subject matter and culturalsymbols. Some experience of analytical thinking is also a bonus.Interpreting cartoons is thus “a complex process that requirespeople to draw on a whole range of different literacies” (El Refaie,2009, p. 181).

In order to meet that interpretive challenge, I draw in the thirdpart on the cartoons literature reviewed here (which provides therequired familiarity with the cartoon genre) and on a variety ofwritings about climate change reviewed in what follows (whichprovide the necessary subject-specific knowledge). I also draw,where relevant, on associated media coverage to highlight thecontext in which the cartoons (and my own interpretation of theirmessages) have emerged.

Geopolitics and visuality in climate change communication

Mike Hulme’s Why We Disagree about Climate Change arguesthat climate change communication frames the subject in partic-ular ways. He identifies six different framings of climate change,each of which has appeal for particular audiences (Hulme, 2009;see also Boykoff, 2008). Julie Doyle’s Mediating Climate Changehighlights three key frames, namely environmental, neo-liberalconsumerist, and humanitarian (Doyle, 2011). Other authorsconcentrate on a couple of narrative frames. Dittmer, Moisio,Ingram, and Dodds (2011) argue that climate change debates aredominated by neo-realist and liberal discourses, while Manzo(2010a, 2010b) contrasts a so-called whole earth discourse ofglobal unity, fragility and vulnerability to a development/humani-tarian frame.

Table 1A typology of climate change frames.

Climate change frame Key themes and core values Visual

ScientificScience/scientific uncertainty

(Boykoff, 2008;Doyle, 2011; Hulme, 2009;Nerlich, 2010)

Global warming, anthropogenicclimate change, nature; truth,prediction, rationality, controlof nature

Chartsmaps egreenh

Neo-realistNeo-realism

(Dittmer et al., 2011)National security

(Hulme, 2009)Political action/policy

(Boykoff, 2008)

Threat, conflict, danger, risk, anarchy,resource competition; security,national control, sovereignty

Maps,meltinemissi

Neo-liberalLiberalism

(Dittmer et al., 2011)Neo-liberal consumerism

(Doyle, 2011)Money (Hulme, 2009)

Consumption, markets, opportunity,promise; multilateralism,individualism, free marketcapitalism, consumerism

Videosnon-casolar penergy

EnvironmentalistEnvironmentalism

(Doyle, 2011)The polar bear

(Hulme, 2009)Whole earth

(Manzo, 2010a, 2010b)

Threat, danger, risk, vulnerability,fragility, unity; nature conservationand protection, sustainability,interdependence, global cooperation

Maps,meltin(polarfloweron par

HumanitarianDevelopment/humanitarian

(Doyle, 2011; Manzo,2010a, 2010b)

Justice and equity(Hulme, 2009)

Vulnerability, inequality, humansuffering; justice, equity, fairness,rights, solidarity

Photogwomesouth,

CatastropheCatastrophe (Hulme, 2009)Fear and disaster

(Boykoff, 2008)

Disaster, apocalypse, death, depletion,loss, self-destruction, urgency;salvation

Photog(floodsbuildinPolar r

Academics have thus identified a number of discursive framesaround climate change, which are summarised in a typology below.Seemingly duplicate or overlapping discourses have been groupedtogether (e.g. liberalism, neo-liberal consumerism, money) leavingsix frames of reference in total.

Table 1 demonstrates why climate change is so contested andpolitical e even among those who accept it is a reality anda problem. Differences in the ways in which climate change isenvisioned help to explain disagreements and debates.

Equally apparent is the indebtedness of all climate changeframes to visuality. They are reliant not only on particular images;they are also dependent on dominant visual forms (such as mapsand photographs) to convey a message that climate change is realbecause it is visible. This truth claim owes a debt to both the“positivist origins of photography” (Macdonald et al., 2010, p. 2) andto modern Western scientific knowledge, which helps constructclimate change as real and lends authority to climate science.

Invisibility and latency (i.e. time lags between causes andeffects) mean that climate change cannot be deduced from a soli-tary photograph. As the photojournalist and artist, Nick Cobbinghas argued, “from looking at a single image you don’t know ifa glacier is melting or receding, or even that there is a problem. Youcan’t show the catastrophe without comparative images and text tobring it into context” (Cobbing, quoted in Smyth, 2007, p. 32).Comparative visualisation and text (for example two photographsof the same glacier side-by-side, with accompanying dates toindicate different time periods) is thus more effective than a singleimage as evidence that climate change is a reality and a problem.Such comparative images are also conducive to the catastropheframe, as the quote from Cobbing suggests. However, like other

forms and iconic images Key audiences

, tables, graphs, computer-simulatedof world temperatures, global

ouse gas emissions

Scientists, the media/sceptics,denialists, those adverse tochange

surveys, videos, photographs e ofg glaciers/polar regions, carbonons

Politicians, tabloid journalists

and photographs e of renewable andrbon energy sources (wind farms,anels, nuclear power, bio-fuels), recycling,-efficient products (lightbulbs, boilers)

Politicians, the private sector,consumers open to smallchanges in habits and lifestyles

globes, surveys, videos, photographs e ofg glaciers/polar regions, Arctic animalsbears, penguins), plant species (trees,s), Earth from space, people (in floodwater,ched land, on glaciers)

Environmentalists, wildlifelovers, those who perceiveclimate change as auniversal/equal threat

raphs and videos e of people (refugees,n, as above but mainly in the globalclimate action campaigners)

NGOs and their supporters,those with strong ethicalleanings, citizens

raphs and videos e of extreme weather, droughts, hurricanes), damage togs, dead plants and animals, pollution,egions, Earth from space

“Those who are worried aboutthe future” (Hulme, 2009,p.: 229), readers of UK tabloids

K. Manzo / Political Geography 31 (2012) 481e494 485

common visualisations of catastrophe (such as pictures of floods ordrought) such images are not actually of climate change itself. Theyare metaphorical representations of its symptoms and purportedeffects.

Textual identification of the probable causes of climate changealso conventionally relies on visual imagery. For example, a bannernewspaper headline: “Worst ever CO2 emissions leave climate onthe brink”, was accompanied by a photograph of smoking factorychimneys and a caption linking economic recession to risingemissions and unsafe levels of global warming (Harvey, 2011, p. 1).

Last but not least, climate change visualisation embraces“possible cures” such as solar panels and energy-efficient lightbulbs, the invisible concepts here being renewable energy and(more broadly) climate change mitigation (Schmidt & Wolfe, 2009,p. 211; Slocum, 2004). Further illustrations are “designed to give anindication of what adaptation solutions might look like”, such asthe UK government’s computer-generated “future worlds images”of urban and rural environments circa 2030 (Department forEnvironment Food and Rural Affairs [Defra], 2011, p. 1).

This brief overview illustrates the reliance of all six climatechange discourses on visual technologies and practices, in waysthat are frequently paradoxical. Firstly, research by Whitmarsh(2009) in the UK suggests that the most common sources ofinformation about climate change/global warming are visual massmedia, i.e. television and newspapers. Whilst recognition ofabstract terms is found to be widespread, the study detectsgenerally “low levels of both understanding and engagementamong the public” in respect of climate change issues (Whitmarsh,2009, p. 417).

Although that paper’s findings are based on only a limitedsurvey in one English city (i.e. Portsmouth), it is important here fortwo reasons. Firstly, it draws a distinction between ‘understanding’in the restrictive or limited sense of factual knowledge of physicalprocesses and a fuller understanding of climate change thatrecognises its integration “with other environmental issues(notably ozone depletion and air pollution) as part of a moral andcultural discourse involving issues of responsibility, trust and socialjustice” (Whitmarsh, 2009, p. 415). It is that fuller sense of under-standing with which this paper is also concerned.

Secondly, restricted public understanding is attributed to themedia itself e its limited capacity “to effectively communicatecomplex information to diverse audiences” e and also to publicmistrust of the media (Whitmarsh, 2009, p. 417). Around half of therespondents in the study agreed that popular media are “often tooalarmist about issues like climate change/global warming” andtherefore less trustworthy sources than scientists (Whitmarsh,2009, p. 411). This shows that alarmist images of threat, danger,and so on are paradoxical in simultaneously raising awareness andmistrust, concern about and superficial understanding of climatechange.

Cobbing’s observation that “climate change is a very complexproblem and in a sense is not photographic” (quoted in Smyth,2007, p. 32) suggests that photographs themselves (and not justalarmist images) are not the best communicators of complexmessages about climate change. It is therefore paradoxical thatphotography is the dominant visual form of climate changecommunication. Photographs often accompany or promote othervisual forms, such as climate change art (Miles, 2010) and docu-mentary films. They also help to picture climate science, along withgraphic visuals such as maps and charts (see for example Schmidt &Wolfe, 2009). While the camera lens can certainly make climatechange seem real, as already indicated, its capacity to visualisetemporal complexity (for example, the relationship betweenpresent behaviour and future climate change) has also been open toquestion. Nicholson-Cole (2005, p. 259), for instance, prefers

computer simulations as they “enable people to think about climatechange futures in relation to present activities of many kinds”. Afitting illustration of this would be Defra’s aforementionedcomputer-generated images of wholesome English landscapes,which contrast starkly to the catastrophe images so prevalent inpopular media.

The third paradox is the one identified by Doyle (2011). Sheargues that it has been difficult for scientists and environmentaliststo communicate the reality of present and future climate changewithout supporting visual evidence. And yet “the very concept ofvisual ‘evidence’ supports scientific knowledge systemswhich havefigured the environment as a visible nature, making it difficult tocommunicate the inherent invisibility of climate change, or thetemporal disjuncture between its causes and effects” (Doyle, 2011,p. 31).

Of particular relevance to this paper is the fourth paradox, whichis that certain visualisations can make climate change real andvisible while leaving the geopolitics of climate change invisible.Concerns about the lack of a particular kind of visibility are sug-gested by the growing calls to envision climate change as a pressing“global justice problem” (Barnett, 2007, p. 1363) and to “acknowl-edge the power relations underpinning the various framings andactions on climate change” (Doyle, 2011, p. 78; see also Boykoff,2008). These calls extend to campaigns run by development/humanitarian NGOs such as Oxfam and Christian Aid, which haveboth adopted the slogan ‘people not polar bears’ in the UK (Manzo,2010a). Their intention is to link climate change to current unevendevelopment and injustice and to challenge four other frames, i.e.neo-realism (with its emphasis on national security), environ-mentalism (the iconography of the polar bear to symbolise globalwarming), the catastrophe frame’s preoccupation with the future,and the neo-liberal frame that appeals to private sector forces suchas “carbon entrepreneurs seeking to make money through newcommodity markets” (Hulme, 2009, p. 229).

A number of related academic studies address the geopoliticalconsequences of prevalent images and forms. Critical questionshave been raised about a broad range of issues, notably theappropriateness of iconic images in specific contexts (Bravo, 2009;Slocum, 2004), their impact on different viewers (O’Neill &Nicholson-Cole, 2009), the geopolitical interventions they enable(Dittmer et al., 2011), the colonial visions they can unwittinglyreproduce (Manzo, 2010a) and the range of possible visualisationsthey foreclose (Doyle, 2011).

Doyle (2011) exemplifies all these types of critique. An academicand one-time Greenpeace campaigner, she embraces the corevalues of the humanitarian frame (as well as a vegan lifestyle) inopposition to neo-liberal consumerism and environmentalism. Shealso critiques the diffusion from Western science into popularmedia and environmental movements of enlightenment concep-tions of nature, vision and time. In her words, conceptions of theenvironment as a “non-human” world problematically separatenature from culture, envisioning the former “as a series of extern-alised objects, separate from humans and their social values/structures” (Doyle, 2011, p. 21). The dualisms of nature/culture,subject/object, human/animal and person/property are integral to“the rationalising and objective logic of scientific knowledge [that]represents nature, the body and emotion as feminised spaces, to becontrolled through the ‘mastery’ of science and technology” (Doyle,2011, p. 22). These dualisms have thus contributed to climatechange by facilitating modern conceptions of nature as aneconomic commodity.

Concerning time, a sense of urgency is pervasive in mediacoverage of climate change. Google alone provided “about74,400,000 results” when the phrase ‘time is running out onclimate change’ was entered into the search engine in May 2012.

K. Manzo / Political Geography 31 (2012) 481e494486

The conception of time itself as a finite commodity is also indicativeof enlightenment thought. Doyle (2011, p. 25) notes how oftenurgent appeals for action before it is too late make reference “totime frames, including clock/calendar time, historical time (such asera/epoch) and past, present and future time”. Her analysis recallsthe philosophy of Ricoeur (1988, p. 44), who links so-called ordi-nary time to amodern, dialectical relation between subjectivity andobjectivity. He contrasts the subjective “phenomenology of internaltime-consciousness” to the “structure of objective time” associatedwith clocks. In Doyle’s analysis, by contrast, the main distinction isbetween “clock/machine time” and “organic environmental time[that] is rhythmic, cyclical and interconnected” (Doyle, 2011, p. 25).The link to Ricoeur is the concept of objectivity. Doyle (2011, p. 25)faults clock time’s dependence upon linear perspective, whichturns time into a decontextualised, objective, singular, quantifiable,finite and fixed commodity that is “isolated from the processes oflife”.

In sum, key issues in climate change communication link toa broader literature on geopolitics and visuality through twooverarching concerns. One is the question of how visuality works inrelation to climate change frames. Of particular concern is the issueof efficacy e the extent to which visuals can facilitate under-standing of climate change without shoring up objectionable waysof seeing and thinking. The other concern is that of effect, i.e. theconsequences that follow from envisioning climate change inparticular ways.

Using the insights gained from secondary reading, part threetakes up these concerns in exploring the possible contributions ofpolitical cartoons. Recalling the earlier quote from Campbell (2007),the key issue explored below is not whether cartoons are accuratedepictions of the reality of climate change but rather how theyfunction as visual commentaries on the geopolitics of climatechange, and with what consequence.

Earthworks: visual methods and climate change cartoons

“The jury had a near-impossible task choosing the threewinnersbut made their choice, ultimately, on the basis of the clarity andshock-value of the message.The judges felt the winningcartoons sent a message that could be understood internation-ally, across cultural, religious or political barriers and bound-aries” (Ken Sprague Fund, 2008, p. 1)

Print media is a source of many political cartoons. A keywordsearch of the British Cartoon Archive (BCA) online, which cata-logues all cartoons first published in UK newspapers since 1904,uncovered few under the search term ‘climate change’. However,dozens appeared when the tagline was changed to ‘global warm-ing’, demonstrating an interest in the issue (since the mid-1990s inparticular) among UK-based professional cartoonists.3

Global warming has also been of interest to the London-basedKen Sprague Fund (KSF), which was established in memory of thelate Ken Sprague after his death in 2004. The KSF is dedicated to theartistic furtherance of Ken Sprague’s political commitments, whichincluded social justice and environmental protection. An ongoinginitiative is a biennial international political cartoon competition,which attracts worldwide entries thanks to publicity by manynational cartoon associations. Under the title Earthworks, the 2008competition invited submissions “on the theme of global warmingand our threatened environment” (Ken Sprague Fund, 2008, p. 1). Itattracted more than three hundred entrants from fifty-five coun-tries e the majority of whomwere reportedly “from less developedcountries e those most likely to be affected by climate change”(Geographical Magazine, 2008).

The decision to analyse the entries to Earthworks (and not thecartoons in the BCA) was taken for three reasons. Firstly, thecompetition garnered international coverage and interest due inpart to initial media attention in the UK. One of its promoters wasthe New Internationalist (NE), a co-operatively run magazine that“campaigns for social and environmental justice worldwide” (NewInternationalist, 2012). The NE featured the results of the Earth-works competition (New Internationalist, 2008, pp. 30e31) as didtwo of Britain’s national daily newspapers, namely the Indepen-dent (Green, 2008) and the Guardian (Adam, 2008). The compe-tition was further mentioned on Internet blogs and websites(Caricaturque, 2007; Forbidden Planet, 2007; GeographicalMagazine, 2008; Nature, 2008) and by multi-national alliancessuch as International Climate Challenge (undated). A year later theBritish Council (2009a, 2009b) teamed up with the KSF and rantwo more cartoon contests on climate change e one in India andone in Sri Lanka. Publicity for these was generated by One WorldSouth Asia (2009) and the Sri Lanka-based Window to Nature(2010). Earthworks thus highlights another role for newspapersin regards to cartoons; they can offer publicity for as well aspublication within.

Secondly, the spatial (global) dimension of the competition is ofinterest considering recent discussions of climate change spatial-ities. Brace and Geoghegan (2010, p. 292) suggest that future-oriented climate change discourse might “benefit from beinggrounded locally rather than spatially orientated towards distantplaces and faraway lands”. This is supported by aforementionedresearch in the UK that suggests “concern about local environ-mental issues is generally higher than concern about global issues”(Whitmarsh, 2009, p. 413, emphasis in the original). By contrast,Devine-Wright (2012) argues that “place attachment in a climatechanged world” requires “polyscalar attachments” that are globalas well as local. He recommends asking what scalar terms like‘global’ mean to people in relation to climate change e which isessentially what the Earthworks competition asked of contestants.The cartoons thus provide an opportunity to explore how a familiarconcept like ‘global warming’ is imagined and given meaning indifferent national contexts.

Finally, the paper expects representational variability becausesix different framings of climate change were identified earlier.Capturing diversity and difference (as well as commonalities andoverlaps) requires a reasonably large data set. This third consider-ation motivated quantitative analysis of the sum total of entriessubmitted to Earthworks.4 On request, the KSF provided a memorystick containing over 340 cartoons, which are discussed in detail inthe remainder of the paper.

The volume of available cartoons, as well as relevant writings ongeopolitics and visuality (Campbell, 2007) and visual methods(Rose, 2001) suggested visual content analysis as a suitablemethod.As explained by Gillian Rose, “the meanings of an image or set ofimages are made at three sites: the site of production, the imageitself, and its audiencing” (Rose, 2001, p. 32). Although my focus inthis part is at the site of the image, it is based on interactions withstudents in the UK and Malaysia (as noted in the acknowledge-ments) as well as my own insights. I address the ‘audiencing’ issuemore fully in the conclusion.

Once a large collection of visuals has been assembled, “the nextstage is to devise a set of categories for coding the images” (Rose,2001, p. 59). Such categories can be either “descriptive or inter-pretive”, i.e. they record “only what is ‘really’ there in the text orimage” (Rose, 2001, p. 59), or else they classify in accordance withtheoretical concerns and subject-specific concepts (see for exampleLutz & Collins, 1993). This paper combines both approaches tocategorisation. An initial coding scheme was devised based oncompetition themes and on key concepts in the literature reviewed

K. Manzo / Political Geography 31 (2012) 481e494 487

in part two. A number of sub-themes suggested by visual discourseanalysis of the cartoons themselves5 were then added.

Once a coding category has been devised “each image must becarefully examined and all the relevant codes attached to it” (Rose,2001, p. 63). The word all is important because although codingcategories must be mutually exclusive and not overlap, imagesthemselves are often inclusive and multi-faceted. This is certainlyto be expected with climate change cartoons, given the complexityof the subject matter and the various ways in which it has beenframed. Many of the Earthworks cartoons were indeed the recipi-ents of multiple codes, as demonstrated in the sections to follow.

The paper now turns to the cartoons. Each section includesa tabular overview of the content analysis; a selection of exemplarycartoons; and a visual discourse analysis in light of the researchquestion and aims.

Apollo’s eye? Global space, future worlds

“As the Earth warms the snow and ice that make the Arcticbright will melt.The Arctic, north of the Arctic circle at 66degrees North, represents only 4 percent of the Earth’s surface,but it carries with it the significance of acting as the Earth’s airconditioner, keeping the planet cool” (Pfirman, 2009, pp. 45e46)

A number of audience studies show that although the two termsare often used interchangeably in the media, ‘global warming’ hasgreater emotional resonance with focus groups than ‘climatechange’ (PIRC, 2010: 10). According to Whitmarsh (2009, p. 416)there is a greater association of ‘global warming’ with humanactivity and ‘climate change’with natural variation.Warming raisesgreater concerns because it is attributed to anthropogenic causesand also “because it suggests a clear direction of change towardsincreasing temperatures while the implications of ‘climate change’are more ambiguous” (emphasis in the original).

The term ‘global warming’ is not a synonym for ‘climate change’though but a symptom, along with Arctic melt, sea level rise,extreme weather, and biodiversity loss (Schmidt & Wolfe, 2009).Although analytically distinguishable these symptoms typicallyintersect, as demonstrated in the quote above. A single code wastherefore devised to cover all these phenomena, namely ‘globalwarming and other symptoms of climate change’. As shown in

Table 2Global visions, global warming.

Sub-themes Indicative categories Evocative images

Whole earth (102) Planet earth Globes and sphere

Global warming andother symptoms ofclimate change (112)

Melting polar ice caps Ice cap islands, arc

Extreme weather (floods,drought, tornadoes)

Submerged vehicleboats; desert sanddry river beds, deaclouds

Heat Hot maps, hot plan

Rising sea levels The seaFuture apocalypse (58) Impending disaster

and deathPlanetary death/de

Human and specieextinction

Suicide/murder

Time running out Egg timers, bombs

Table 2, almost a third of the 343 Earthworks cartoons qualified forthis particular code.

Regardless of its emotional credentials, global warming isa spatial concept in a way that climate change is not. Typicalrepresentations of global space are world maps and sphericalglobes, although these are not the only options. Cosgrove (2008, p.1862) argues that the “globalisation of environmental concerns andimages” has “shifted nature’s icons from landscape towards livingspecies and from a temperate to a tropical and polar geography”.This means that while polar Arctic regions have specific meaningfor their indigenous Inuit and Cree peoples (Bravo, 2009), for othersthey are also key signifiers of “a global geography of apocalypse”along with “Whole Earth images” that denote “the planet asa vulnerable living organism” (Cosgrove, 2008, pp. 1873e1874).

‘Whole earth’ and ‘future apocalypse’ are therefore the othersub-themes used to code the Earthworks cartoons. Since temporalconcepts such as ‘impending’ and ‘approaching’ often attach to theapocalyptic catastrophe frame (Hulme, 2009) the qualifier future ispossibly redundant. Its inclusion is in recognition of the afore-mentioned ‘people not polar bears’ campaigns, which challenge the“futurity” of apocalyptic scenarios (Brace & Geoghegan, 2010, p.290).

A glance down the columns in Table 2 that are headed ‘indica-tive categories’ and ‘evocative images’ recalls the standard reper-toire of iconic images of climate change presented in Table 1. Thesetwo columns summarise the subject-specific content of Earthworkscartoons while the one headed ‘icons, symbols and metaphors’relates to the cartoon codes discussed in part one. The followingexamples demonstrate how archetypical cartoon processes such aspersonification, objectification and metaphor can produce diversegeopolitical visions.

Like other exemplars of the environmentalist frame, Fig. 2denotes a vulnerable living organism. The presence of a storkwith an empty sling suggests frustrated motherhood or infertilityand, more broadly, the feminisation of nature. The replacement ofsmooth skin with the cracked earth symbolism of extreme weather(itself a common signifier of global warming) further implies a nowbarren Mother Earth.

Cartoons can be ambiguous, as already mentioned, and Fig. 2 isso in at least twoways. Firstly, the absence of a familiar signifier likea globe makes spatial scale harder to determine. My reading ofFig. 2 as global space relates to context, conventional usage, and

Icons, symbols and metaphors

s, maps Personification (of the earth, of buildings),objectification (of the earth), Christianiconography (Adam and Eve)

tic animals, igloos Stranded arctic animals, igloos and palm trees,melting snowmen and ice-cubes

s and buildings,, cracked earth,d fish; swirling

Christian iconography (Noah’s ark, arks),personification (of cracked earth), the earthsqueezed, fish without water, droplets

et earth Personification (of the earth), objectification(of the earth), coloured maps, sunny skiesPushing back the tide, tidal waves

struction Objectification (of the earth, the ozone layer),help signs, Christian iconography (angels, crosses)

s death and Christian iconography (crucifixion, crosses, thegrim reaper), skulls, skeletons, graves;aestheticisation (of nature), animal carcasses, loneflowers/trees/birds, protected trees, a brick scarecrowPersonification (of the earth, of nature), thoughtor speech balloonsSands of time, time bombs

Fig. 3. “Ampulheta”. Sidnei Marques, Brazil.

Fig. 2. Untitled. Serpilkar Nemrut, Turkey.

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absence. The cartoon was produced within the context of thecompetition guidelines, which make the global scale explicit.Mother Earth is also a common allegory for global space, as in thedraft text produced at the UN’s international climate talks held inDurban, South Africa in December 2011. This asked for recognitionand defence of the rights of Mother Earth.6 Finally, there are nosigns of any other scale in Fig. 2. These three factors suggest readingthis cartoon as an unusual rendition of a ‘whole earth’ discourse ofglobal fragility and vulnerability.

The second ambiguity concerns gender. TheMother Earth imagerecalls critiques of how Western enlightenment science has rep-resented nature as a feminised space for the purposes of masteryand control (Doyle, 2011). That critical element cannot easily beread into Fig. 2, however, in the absence of signifiers of science andtechnology, mastery and control. Overall then, the cartoon seems tosit within the environmentalist frame without offering eithera temporal element or a clear critique of other frames.

Planet earth reappears in Fig. 3, but this time as a disposableobject. Ampulheta is Portuguese for an hour glass-shaped sandtimer (which also featured in seven other Earthworks cartoons) sothere is an explicit referent in the title to time. Metaphorically, theplacement of the human being atop the sand timer implies that thesubject is (or perceives himself to be) outside of time. This isapparently because he is both inattentive to global change and asyet unscathed by it e the global South having hit the garbage canbefore the North. The financial symbols could be read as eitherrepresentations of global currencies or as attributes of westernsocieties (like the man’s clothing). Either way, the message of“Ampulheta” is that time is running out to save the planet from thedestruction caused by human blindness, inaction, greed and

consumerist lifestyles. “Ampulheta” thus offers a clear critique ofthe neo-liberal ‘money’ frame, suggesting it is part of the problemand not a solution to global warming.

Although Fig. 3 can be read as political critique, it does noteffectively challenge enlightenment conceptions of time, space andpower. Temporality is imagined as ordinary time, i.e. as an objectivephenomenon or finite commodity that can ‘run out’ (Doyle, 2011;Ricoeur, 1988). Furthermore, the clearly drawn boundary betweenthe human figure and the planet (i.e. the top of the sand timer) isparadoxical. While it could be read as a critique of enlightenmentvisions of nature as a disposable commodity spatially separate fromhumans, it also seems to re-inscribe a problematic boundarybetween nature and culture. This highlights again how cartoonanalysis can produce different interpretations; the distinctionbetween presentation and critique of a particular perspective is notalways clear to the viewer.

The final cartoon highlighted here is in Fig. 4 below. “Futuro”brings both global warming (the sun) and extreme weather(drought, symbolised again as cracked earth) into its apocalypticvision of the future. Another contrast to Figs. 2 and 3 is in the use ofnumbers to signify time as a combination of both ordinary time andorganic environmental time. Consistent with the former, time isboth binary/historical (present/future) and linear (with threeimagined stages in this case). Consistent with the latter is themessage that humanity e although last onto the podium e is anintegral part of an earthly biosphere and thus inextricably linked tospecies death and extinction. The cartoon recalls the argumentthat: “the effects of climate change are first felt by species moresensitive to biosphere changes than are humans.and those effects

Fig. 4. “Futuro”. Omar Zevallos, Peru.

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are currently invisible to most people” (Slocum, 2004, pp. 420e421). “Futuro” therefore offers a way to imagine not only futurecatastrophe but also species interconnectedness and an ultimatelycommon (if sequential) fate.

Anthropocentrism: attributing blame, envisioning threat

“Charting carbon dioxide is now fundamental to plottingclimate narratives, whereas blaming shorter term agents likeGeorge W. Bush is not” (Daniels & Endfield, 2009, p. 217)

“The blame for anthropogenic climate change and greenhousegas emissions has been variously assigned to the global collec-tive, to nation states, to economic sectors and to individuals”(Liverman, 2009, p. 288)

The quotes above indicate how blame is an important conceptoften related to the competition theme of environmental threat.

Table 3Anthropogenic visions of danger and threat.

Sub-themes Indicative categories Evocative images

Carbon emissions andcontamination (41)

Industrial pollution Factories and chim

Ocean/river pollution andcontamination

Fish, shorelines, faan oil-soaked mer

Carbon transportsystems (11)

Vehicular travel and infrastructure;air travel

Car/cars against ncivilian aircraft; ro

Carbon alternatives (8) Nuclear power, bio-fuelcultivation/bio energy

Power plants, darbio-fuel pumps, dcultivation

Consumption andhuman waste (14)

Consumer waste, disposability,waste matter

Garbage bins, dispobjects, lavatories

Militarism and spacetravel (6)

Infantry, air forces, nuclearweapons; moon travel

Soldiers, militaryUSA on the moon

Natural resourcedepletion (34)

Deforestation Tree stumps, axesmachinery and ve

Nation-states (9) Particular countries National symbolsIdentifiable politic

Human failing/self-destruction (10)

Stupidity, indifference, imprudence,craziness, greed, violenceagainst nature

Self-inflicted amplifeboat, cockroac

This section therefore explores various geopolitical visions of blameand threat in Earthworks cartoons.

Carbon and emissions are frequently intertwined in anthropo-genic climate change narratives. The first sub-themes included inTable 3 were therefore ‘carbon emissions and contamination’ and‘carbon transport systems’. ‘Carbon alternatives’ relates to “thelatest development discourse as entrepreneurs and environmentalgroups approach local communities with projects for carbonsequestration and energy alternatives” (Liverman, 2009, p. 293).This trend suggests a synthesis of the neo-liberal ‘money’ frame andthe humanitarian ‘justice and equity’ frame.

The first three columns of Table 3 show how so-called “highcarbon systems” (Dennis & Urry, 2009, p. 6) are envisioned inrelation to threat. Sixty of the Earthworks cartoons qualify for thatcode. Industrialisation, air travel and car ownership are globalthreats in the sense that these processes are worldwide in scopeand produce global effects. The development of high carbonsystems is still spatially uneven, however, and the sorts of “‘luxury’emissions” generated by products like “large cars” are not universal(Liverman, 2009, p. 289).

The second biggest sub-theme is natural resource depletion.Fig. 5 below was one of the thirty-four entries devoted to defor-estation. The majority of these used axes and tree stumps to signifydestruction of nature and the invisible concept of disappearance.They also reflected to some extent “the country of origin and itsclimatic issues”, with Brazilian cartoonists, for example, depicting“the loss of the Amazonian forest” (Alter, 2008, p. 1). Nationalcontext therefore does shape geopolitical visions and the produc-tion of meaning about climate change. What “Adam-Eva” shows,however, is how cartoons can convey meaning across nationalboundaries using internationally recognised visual languages andmetaphors.

As one of eighteen cartoons that put Christian iconography towork, “Adam-Eva” recalls arguments about the prevalence of reli-gious metaphors in wider debates about climate change. Beyondthe concept of Apocalypse itself (with its implicit gestures towardsthe biblical Book of Revelation), “providential narratives of theBible” had “a strong currency” in eighteenth-century discourses on

Icons, symbols and metaphors

neys, air pollution/acid rain Personification (of industry), objectification(of the earth), gas masks, smog, a buildingas a sword, carbon footprints, Christianiconography (Adam and Eve, an angel),thought or speech balloons

ctories and pipelines,maid

Personification (of fish), disposable itemsas fish food, a solid river, Christian iconography(Jesus Christ)

ature; petrol stations;ads

Cars as humans or dogs, a car in a flood

k clouds; agro-fuel oreforested land for bio-fuel

Personification (of a mushroom cloud), thenuclear power plant symbol, thought orspeech balloons

osed-of objects, squashed Objectification (of the earth, of nature),Christian iconography (angels)

aircraft/rockets/helmets; Personification (of the earth),objectification (of the earth)

and chainsaws, heavyhicles, forest fire, scissors

Personification (of the earth, of trees),objectification (of trees), Christian iconography(Adam and Eve), thought balloonsThe US dollar, the US flag, Uncle Sam

ians Personification (of states), caricature(of politicians), thought or speech balloons

utations, a sinkinghes

Personification (of man, of nature),objectification (of man, of nature), thoughtor speech balloons

Fig. 5. “Adam-Eva”. Musagumus, Turkey.

Fig. 6. “Stask [sic] up against”. Zhang Bin, China.

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climate and weather (Daniels & Endfield, 2009, p. 220). Morerecently the “Genesis myth of Babel” has been linked to ideas ofgod-like climate control through geo-engineering and conquest(Hulme, 2009, pp. 348e349). Amongst climate change sceptics aswell, Brigitte Nerlich found a politically paralysing “paradoxicalmixture of religious metaphors and demands for ‘better science’”(Nerlich, 2010, p. 419).

A clear message of “Adam-Eva” is that humanity’s earthlyparadise has been ruined and stripped of its bounty. Where thecartoon is ambiguous is in its attribution of blame e suggestingeither human failing (as in the original Genesis story aboutbanishment from the Garden of Eden) or unseen forces at work.

“Stask [sic] up against” (which I take to mean ‘stacked upagainst’) in Fig. 6 uses the cartoon device of personification but thistime (unlike in Figs. 1 and 2) to represent an adversarial relation-ship between industrial man and the animal world. The differentialsizing of the figures connotes an unequal fight between culture/nature and self/other, while the globe underneath signifiesaworldwide spatiality. Although the suggestion of species relationsechoes Fig. 4, the “Futuro” vision of sequential death and eventualApocalypse is no longer present. This message is about techno-logical mastery and control. The odds seem to be stacked firmlyagainst nature, because in a zero-sum battle between industrialdevelopment and animal conservation, the latter is destined to lose.The cartoonist’s perspective is thus consistent with Henri Lefeb-vre’s conception of natural space under capitalism, when he arguesthat nature e although “resistant” and “infinite in its depth” e hasbecome nothing more than a rawmaterial or input into production.This is what Lefebvre (1991, p. 31) means when he says that nature“has been defeated, and now waits only for its ultimate voidanceand destruction”.

Uneven development: global power relations and inequality

“Understanding the relations of power in the political,economic, and cultural aspects of climate change must occuralongside getting the facts” (Slocum, 2004, p. 429)

“Liquid fuels made from plantse such as bioethanole are hailedby some as environmentally-friendly replacements for fossilfuels. Because they compete for land with crop plants, biofuelshave also been linked to record food prices and rising hunger.There are also fears they can increase greenhouse gas emissions”(Carrington & Valentino, 2011, p. 1)

The explicit themes of the Earthworks competition, i.e. ‘globalwarming’ and ‘environmental threat’ have now been analysedthrough content analysis and visual discourse analysis. This finalsection highlights cartoons that explicitly tackle relations of powerwhile fitting the Earthworks judging criteria.

Geopolitical themes in the cartoon studies reviewed in part oneare war and conflict, national identity, government policies,popular resistance, international diplomacy, religion, and migra-tion. Such themes also feature in the climate change studies con-cerned with power relations in international climate policy andconventions; with questions of climate justice and uneven devel-opment; and with the implications of market-based responses toclimate change (Slocum, 2004; see also Barnett, 2007; Liverman,2009).

Table 4 shows that five of the cartoons were coded as ‘globaldivisions and unequal relations of power’. The concept of‘displacement’, which was similarly derived from secondary

Table 4Interconnected worlds and global inequality.

Sub-themes Indicative categories Evocative images Icons, symbols and metaphors

Global divisions and unequalrelations of power (5)

Climate change conventions Countries around a conference table Countries personified; nuclear powers asanimals; chairs as nuclear waste

Secession by the economicnorth

Planetary breakaway by theeconomic north

Planet earth as a time bomb; the economicnorth as astronauts in a spaceship

The uneven benefits ofbio-fuel energy

Different peoples at a bio-fuel station Global north and global south personified

Water privatisation Payment for water Water guards/the US dollarDisplacement (4) Migration and refuge Climate change refugees Arctic animals as climate change refugees, a

‘refugee camp’ for birds, extra-terrestrialhumans

Solidarity, blocs andexclusions (4)

Species unity Animal conferencing, animal peace talks,a demonstration against global warming

A ‘no person’ sign beside animals,personification (of snowmen)

Transnational unity Different peoples together A ‘black’ man, a ‘white’ man and anEskimo together

The universe (9) Planets/the galaxy The earth among other planets Personification (of the earth)

K. Manzo / Political Geography 31 (2012) 481e494 491

sources, reflects growing calls for a new international conventionaddressed to “the climate change displacement problem”

(Hodgkinson, Burton, Young, & Anderson, 2009, p. 155). Althoughthe other sub-themes in the table emerged descriptively from thecartoons, they recall academic challenges to positivist conceptionsof nature (or the earth itself) as simply rawmaterials separate fromhumans (Doyle, 2011). If “humans and nonhumans cofabricate”a world that sits within a larger universe (Cosgrove, 2008, p. 1863)then global power relations can be imagined as inter-species anduniversal as well as international.

Fig. 7 below provides a lucid illustration of a classic politicalcartoon. Caricatured politicians sit behind the mainly countrynames and flags7 that serve as indicators of national identity andsovereignty in a multilateral setting. Nonetheless, this cartoon isneither neo-realist nor neo-liberal in its framing of climate change.Despite their differences, both those frames envision activist statese either responding to heightened threats to national security orelse pushing for multilateral agreements (Dittmer et al., 2011).Here, by contrast, the powerful group watch passively as the tinyglobe labelled ‘Others’ destructs in front of their eyes. As planesexplode upwards, water pours down and minute figures flee fromthe devastation towards the edge of an abyss. The clear message of

Fig. 7. “Climate change convention

this cartoon is thus twofold. Firstly, climate change conventions aremanifestations of unequal relations of power. The ‘Others’ may bethere but they are effectively invisible. Secondly, the visibly largeand knowing political forces are dooming the planet to the effectsof anthropogenic climate change. The theme of inaction is remi-niscent of “Ampulheta”, but there the figure atop the sand timerwas preoccupied with money and not actually looking in at theworld. Here the mighty politicians see what is happening globallyand still do nothing to stop it.

The cartoon in Fig. 8, by contrast, uses the symbolism of a petrolhose to metaphorically link carbon transport systems to carbonalternatives. The hose, furthermore, is a spatial metaphor for globalinterconnectedness and a symbolic challenge to enlightenmentdistinctions between nature and culture, self and other. The smallbrown naked figure beside the ‘bio-energy’ tanks, with his dis-tended belly and hand-to-mouth gesture, recalls the iconic visualsof the humanitarian frame. Generic “images of suffering related toAfrican famine” are frequently used there “to convey the humanimpacts of climate change” (Doyle, 2011, p. 43). Media reports of“British firms leading the rush to buy up Africa in biofuels boom”

(Carrington & Valentino, 2011, p. 1) also suggest reading the brownfigure as an allegory for Africa. The vehicle, meanwhile, signifies

”. Jean Claude Alphen, Brazil.

Fig. 8. Untitled. Timar, France.

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wealth and ‘luxury’ emissions. As for the car owner standingdirectly below the giant corporate call to “make the world a betterplace” by switching to biofuels and further commodifying nature,he appears startled to realise that fuel consumption and fooddeprivation are interconnected.

This cartoon is thus a geopolitical critique of neo-liberal faith inmarket-based solutions to climate change mitigation. It echoes theargument that “the impact of the growing demand for biofuels

Fig. 9. “Coat star”. Mikhail Zlatkovsky, Russia (1st prize).

(purportedly to offset carbon emissions) on global food pricesthreatens to create much greater poverty and inequality for theurban poor than the direct impacts of a changing climate” (Bravo,2009, p. 263).

The cartoon that actually won the competition is different again.Indicative of the relatively small number of Earthworks entriesdisplaying a universal (rather than global) imagination, “Coat star”is like Fig.1 in its personification of the earth. However this time theplanet is not a woman but a man in a shabby oversized coat. Thejudges were reportedly impressed by the symbolic portrayal “ofhumanity’s indecency in ruining our world” (New Internationalist,2008, p. 30). The satirical use of phallic, bawdy and/or obscenesymbolism recalls Zapiro’s ‘rape’ and Bell’s ‘condom’ cartoons butalso has a much longer pedigree, arguably dating back to ancientGreece (Bal et al., 2009). In this case, the representation ofanthropogenic climate change as a metaphorical ‘dirty old man’ inFig. 9 was judged to be a winning competitive strategy.

Conclusion

There is more to climate change communication than simpledeclarations. The various discourses that frame climate change aremoral, cultural and political, involving as they do issues such astrust, responsibility and justice. These discourses also depend invarious ways on the production of visual evidence, thus providingfurther indication of modern associations “between visuality andtruth-telling” (Macdonald et al., 2010, p. 4). Climate changediscourses are also fundamentally geopolitical. They not only sitwithin, and are shaped by, broader relations of power and knowl-edge; they also produce geopolitical consequences (such as thehuman impact of biofuel production on global food prices).

In this context, the paper aimed to show how the co-constitution of climate change discourse and visuality hasbecome paradoxical in numerous ways. The catastrophe frame’salarmist images, which are prevalent in popular media, have beenblamed in the UK for low levels of public understanding of, andengagement with, climate change. Such images paradoxically raiseawareness and concern about climate change while fosteringmistrust of the media itself as a reliable source of information andknowledge. Other paradoxes concern the dominant role ofphotography in climate change communication in general and thereliance of climate science in particular on visual evidence. Asmuchas conventional visual technologies, practices and iconic imagescan make climate change seem real, they cannot fully capture theinvisible, temporally complex, fundamentally contested andgeopolitical character of climate change.

The question, then, was how political cartoonsmight function asrepresentations of the geopolitics of climate change (including itsgeopolitical consequences) and their capacity to enable a fullerunderstanding of climate change issues and debates than othervisual forms. Cartoons’ theoretical potential was suggested bya multi-disciplinary literature in popular geopolitics and politicalstudies, which was further used to help structure analysis of theEarthworks data set presented in part three.

Although cartoons can be funny it is not a requirement. They canalso be ambiguous and complex. Differences of interpretation arepossible, even among those with the multiliteracy skills required todecode visual discourse. Cartoons deploy cultural symbols andmetaphors, the meanings of which are not necessarily universal.Cartoons therefore entail analytical challenges for audiences as wellas tensions between clarity and creativity at their sites of produc-tion. In attempting to win a UK-based, international competitionlike Earthworks, the paper showed that many entrants deployeda range of iconic images (such as a spherical earth to denote global

K. Manzo / Political Geography 31 (2012) 481e494 493

space) and familiar visual metaphors (such as biblical iconography)to get their meanings across.

In addition to the similarities, however, the paper highlightedsignificant differences among the cartoons. When taken together,the Earthworks cartoons provide numerous illustrations of thevarious climatechange frames identified inTable1aswell asbroaderperspectives on time, space and power. The data set did not offera singular perspective on climate change issues. However that verydiversity, along with the ability of the cartoon form to presentcomplex issues in simplified and accessible forms, is what givescartoons such as these a useful role to play in climate changecommunication e not as visual evidence of climate change but asvehicles for education, awareness and debate. The requirements ofmultiliteracy, as well as the complexity of the subject matter itself,suggest classrooms as a fruitful (but by no means only) site ofaudience engagement with climate change cartoons. They can alsobe exhibited for public display, alongwith other forms of visual art.8

It might seem paradoxical, at a time of reportedly “widespreadscepticism about the reality or human causes of climate change/global warming” (Whitmarsh, 2009, p. 416) to propose greater useof a visual form that is both unscientific and demanding of ‘readers’.There are two very good reasons to do so. Firstly, the term‘knowledge paradox’ is used in climate change communication torefer to the fact that some people care less about climate change themore they know about climate science. For “these sceptical groups,more information is not the solution to engaging them in the issueof climate change/global warming”; the challenge is to effectivelyshow how climate change connects to their existing concerns,experiences and moral values (Whitmarsh, 2009, p. 417). Cartoonshave the potential for such visual engagement even if they do notinform in the narrow sense of imparting scientific knowledge aboutphysical processes.

Secondly, the call for further research into audience reception ofcartoons echoes broader calls for more studies of how images arereceived and understood (Dodds, 2010). Questions about howparticular audiences interpret climate change cartoons would thuscontribute to a broader project in political geography on relationsbetween audiences, power and visual representation.

Acknowledgements

All cartoons are reprinted here by kind permission of the KenSprague Fund (KSF). I am indebted to John Green, Secretary of theKSF, for supplying the Earthworks cartoons and answering manyquestions in the course of this research. I am appreciative of thefour anonymous referees and Professor James Sidaway for theirvaluable comments. I want to thank university students in Englandand Malaysia for their analysis of a select number of Earthworkscartoons. Discussions with undergraduate students in the Geopo-litical Thought and Practice module (University of Newcastle,March 2011 and 2012) and the Introduction to Sustainable Devel-opment module (University of Technology Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur,October 2011) are greatly appreciated. Thanks also go to colleaguesin the Visualities group and the Politics, Space and Power researchcluster at the University of Newcastle for helpful comments onwork in progress.

Endnotes

1 President Zuma’s decision to sue Zapiro for defamation over the cartoons wassubsequently satirised as well. All can be seen at http://www.zapiro.com Accessed22.06.11.2 Overviews of both films and associated photographs are available on the InternetMovie Database at http://imdb.com Accessed 24.11.11.3 To access these cartoons go to: http://www.cartoons.ac.uk Accessed 14.08.12.

4 For the winners go to http://www.kenspraguefund.org/conpetition_2008.html;the shortlisted entries are available at http://www.kenspraguefund.org/competition/competition_2008/competition_shortlist.html Accessed 25.11.10.5 The term ‘visual discourse analysis’ refers here to my own reading of the Earth-works cartoons. For a fuller discussion of different forms of discourse analysis, seeRose (2001).6 The draft text e and a trenchant critique of its contents e can be found at http://www.climatedepot.com Accessed 16.04.12.7 The one labelled ‘Europa’ seems to represent the European Union rather thana single nation-state. The others in full view are USA, India, China, and Russia. Theidentity of the half-figure on the extreme left of the cartoon is unknown, as thewriting on the card is illegible and a search of flag databases on the Internet failedto find a match to the flag.8 A selection of Earthworks cartoons were exhibited most recently in February 2012,at a “major national [UK] gathering of those concerned with the interface betweenthe arts and culture on one hand, and environmental issues, particularly climatechange, on the other”. See Tipping Point Newcastle, at http://www.tippingpoint.org.uk/tippingpoint-newcastle/ Accessed 14.08.12.

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