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IN THE blue flicker of television screens in millions of living rooms, silently staring faces are told the news: we are at war with terrorists so the government will treat us all like potential criminals with new laws and surveillance measures; we are waging war on drugs, but here is an advert for whisky; if you cannot pay your mortgage you will be out on the street but if you are a banker who has lost billions the government will bail you out. And so paradoxically on and on. Occasionally there is mention of the impending end of the planet as we know it, but somewhat in passing, as if it did not quite matter or were not quite true.

Why has climate change not prompted more alarm? One reason is that we do not wish to believe it. Believing it means serious and inconvenient changes to our lifestyles. Another reason is that there are plenty of vested interests who have every reason to discourage us from believing it, and who are themselves motivated not to believe it either: commerce, industry and governments aiming for re-election and reluctant to impose inconveniences on voters.

Also, we are all waiting for a miracle to happen, in the form of the men and women in white coats coming up with a quick, easy, inexpensive technological fix. Or perhaps we hope to wake up one day and find it was all just a bad dream.

Advertisers and politicians know that the trick to influencing attitudes and actions is to find a way of communicating information quickly and, above all, simply. Commercial marketing relies on the logo and the advertising jingle. Political parties rely on the sloganised message, and for their opponents a jibe or accusation that resonates with the public. For example, one of the most famous political advertisements in the UK of recent times was a picture of a queue outside an unemployment office and the legend : a stroke of genius that won an election. For another example, critics of ex-president George W. Bush call him 鈥淒ubya鈥�, instantly projecting the image of a clumsy fool in a china shop, mouthing incoherently.

Science needs to find ways of speaking to the world with the same impact, especially when the message it is trying to convey is so momentous and urgent. On climate change it needs a resonant image, accurate but simple. And perhaps at last it has found it: by dramatising the greenhouse effect for non-specialists in terms of . This is the brainchild of , a specialist in risk perception at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who likens the world to a bath into which water is pouring from open taps twice as fast as it can drain away. The water is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and forests. The drain is plants and oceans. The drain is getting clogged 鈥� the plants and oceans are becoming CO₂ saturated. The bathroom is heading for a flood.

鈥淭he 鈥榖athtub effect鈥� likens Earth to a bath into which water is pouring twice as fast as it can drain away鈥�

In fact things are worse. The carbon emissions policies being bandied about by governments of polluting countries appear to assume that if you turn down the taps, the water can be made to enter at a more manageable rate and all will be well. Alas, that misses a couple of significant points. The taps are stiff and take a long time to turn. And the weight of water already in the bath has closed up the drain to the point where it is on the verge of being blocked. Already there might be no way of preventing a flood.

Even the most pessimistic climate scientists think we should try to reduce carbon emissions nonetheless. It might only moderate the coming catastrophe rather than avoid it, but doing nothing can only guarantee that it will get worse. The bathtub analogy might be just what is needed to get attitudes 鈥� and especially habits 鈥� really changing at last.