ABSTRACT
In late spring of 2015, the German weekly DIE ZEIT published an essay on climate change and built its argument around the claim that this topic was everything but new (Henk & Uchatius 2015, p. 15). By way of proof, the article is illustrated with cover shots of numerous international magazines ranging from the present all the way back to 1988.1 To their astonishment, the authors find a rather limited number of climate change motifs in those illustrations: polar bear on melting ice, the globe in flames, storms, floods and the havoc they play (Henk & Uchatius 2015, p. 16). Considering the immenseness of climate change issues and the far reach of their impacts, this shortage of a visual language and the limitations of bold, alarmist headlines are particularly striking.
