Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Covid 19 — it sounds like a pharmaceutical name.  Covid 19, ask your doctor if it’s right for you.  Unless you can’t afford a doctor. Then, I guess, ask your friend who is also a vet tech?  

The thing with Covid 19 is that we can kind of all see it right away what the costs are. For all of the unknowns of this virus, there are a lot of clear images for this old human brain to grab onto.  The hospital tents spilling out into parking areas, sick people in beds, the move to online funerals. Even really groovy Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is closing Canada’stheir borders. This is the guy that went shirtless for Pride. If he’s going closed borders, something must be up. And it’s happening now. 

And the other thing is that we are told, look, stay in your house, wash your hands and this virus will totally be under control. So we’re like, okay, I can do that. I can wash my hands to two rounds of happy birthday. I’m kind of a shut in normally anyway, so I’ll keep out of high population density areas and events. And in a mere three weeks, catastrophe averted! Go team flat curve! Or flatter curve! 

When it comes to climate change, it’s a totally different communication. While the stakes are even higher than Covid 19, the image is blurrier for most. How can you prove that the hurricane on the news I’m watching now is any different than the hurricanes I’ve been watching for decades? Water levels info graphics seem to be the closest to a simple visual to hold on to, but if I live 100 miles from the coast, why would I care? Infographics in vivid colors with statistics really aren’t a match for most imaginations. 

And with regard to the behaviors people should take, messaging feels even less clear. When in anyone’s life did saying, “You have to change in the next eleven years or you’ll die,” make any impact on the actual behaviours killing the patient? And what, specifically, are we supposed to change? Am I washing plastic bags or not? Am I going vegan? Because both of those things are really much harder than washing my hands and binge watching Shrill. 

All kidding aside, there have been solid strides in simplifying a very complex messaging challenge. The Sunrise Movement has made some great videos, with clear messages around the primary, the election, and striking after. Mary DeMocker’s book has a list of 100 things to do, written in accessible language I can read and not hyper-ventillate to, as I drift off for the night. And honesty, that’s what I want. I want a warm blanket of possibility and hope, in the form of simple concrete actions that aren’t that far off from what I was going to do anyway.  

The better we get at making the complex as simple as it can be, but no simpler, the bigger our community will grow. And it’s spring, so we’re due some growth.