Source: https://www.meer.com/en/88319-changing-our-perspectives-about-earth

Communications experts all agree that a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s true. A striking image has an instant emotional impact that even a thousand words cannot create. But the intellectual impact is more complicated. An image does not have full effect unless we take the trouble to understand what we see. Our failure to connect the dots can be tragic.

For example, a familiar image in the news today is a family sorting through the rubble of its collapsed home, hoping to find irreplaceable treasures that survived an unprecedented wildfire or storm. The picture triggers empathy. However, it also shows the consequences of much earlier events in a chain of causes and effects. We can draw a straight mental line between the rubble, society’s addiction to fossil fuels, the policies and policymakers who encourage their use, and the profit-hungry corporations that produce them.