A PICTURE is worth a thousand words and one group has created an attention grabbing image that they think sums up Tony Abbott’s approach to climate change.

Taken on Townsville’s main beach The Strand on Sunday, the image has been getting a positive response online.

It features a landscape of people with their heads in the sand with the words “Townsville salutes ... the Australian government for their achievements in combating climate change” placed over the top.

The image was the brainchild of Cranky Curlew Productions and the North Queensland Conservation Council, which wanted to support the People’s Climate March on Sunday, the largest climate march in history and which attracted more than 300,000 people in New York, by doing something a bit different.

“I felt like I wanted to do something different, we attend so many marches,” NQCC co-ordinator Wendy Tubman said.

The idea to capture people with their heads in the sand was the idea of NQCC member Penelope Sheridan. Her husband George Hirst, former editor of the newspaper Magnetic Times and now founder of Cranky Curlew, took the photo.

He told news.com.au that it took about 40 minutes to get the shot but he had already done a trial on the weekend. The final image featured about 80 people and Mr Hirst said he did Photoshop it slightly to adjust the positioning of the bodies.

“It was a terrific effort for those that did it, there was sand up the nose and even a dead possum that we had to remove,” Mr Hirst said.

“I think it was an effective way of protesting but while also having a fun time. Once people had done it I think they actually enjoyed the process, they liked having their head in the sand ... but maybe we shouldn’t tell people that,” Mr Hirst joked.

Mr Hirst said he hoped that the concept would take off and that others would set up their own shots.

“People seem to like the idea ... I would love to see people do it on Bondi Beach.”

NQCC is particularly concerned about the Great Barrier Reef and is one of the groups fighting the expansion of the Abbot Point coal terminal.

Ms Tubman said the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority had acknowledged that climate change was the reef’s greatest threat.

“The circumstances are dire, we have such awful leadership at the moment in Australia about climate change,” she said.

Ms Tubman said the fact that Mr Abbott was skipping the United Nations Climate summit indicated that he was choosing to ignore the problem, essentially putting his head in the sand.

“The rest of the world and we will suffer because of his intransigence,” she said.

Mr Abbott has defended skipping the UN summit in New York, which is being held a day before a special security council meeting he is attending.

Instead Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will attend in his place.