According to ancient lore, the mind contains the three faculties of Reason, Feelings, and will. The structure of language mirrors these basic divisions.

Nouns reflect reason (as perception of objects or persons and conception of ideas), adjectives reflect feelings or emotions, verbs reflect will or action. Also, adverbs provide the emotional coloring of the will, pronouns are proxies for nouns, conjunctions are links between all of the above, and prepositions provide space-time orientations, sometimes tinged with emotion.

Action is impossible without emotion, as Damasio showed. If the brain region responsible for emotion is destroyed, reason may correctly analyze situations and prescribe appropriate actions, but the actions are not carried out, because the motivation is lacking.

This is like social situations, e.g. in the field of environmental protection, where science (reason) provides the correct analysis and recommends appropriate actions, but they are not carried out because “the political will” is absent. The public has not been emotionally aroused to a sufficient extent.

Our rational analysis of the crisis must become much richer in adjectives, arousing both despair and hope. Perhaps pictorial representations would “speak” to this more eloquently than language.