In the speech held at the United Nations climate action summit, a climate activist girl called Greta Thunberg argues about environmental degradation as an emergency. Greta began a great crusade to fight global temperature and carbon emission rise when she was eleven. She is from Sweden, is short, wears no makeup, has dark brown hair, and looks like the small children she represents. She is uncomfortable with large crowds and social gatherings due to the Asperger’s syndrome that she has been diagnosed with. Despite the belief by people that her condition is an unfortunate situation, she believes in herself and her superpower.
Greta was shown the negative effects of climate change in school which moved her in a way that her classmates were not. The idea that the world leaders were doing nothing to change the climate crisis threw her into depression. Therefore, she wrote an essay on climate change, entered it into her local newspaper context, and won the contest. Henceforth, she began a conquest with an influential protest held outside the Swedish parliament in 2018. She skipped school for this protest and sat outside the parliament building during hours when school was not in session with a fury that couldn’t be satisfied. The growth in interest for her protest made her begin a movement known as “Friday future.” She had a stark white sign on her back and read that “school strike for climate” (Koester 2019), and she vowed to protest until the September Swedish elections. Many people joined her in her protest, which made her the face of all young people who were willing to make a change.
In her speech, she suggests urgent actions to reduce at least fifty percent carbon dioxide emissions with exclusions of the Paris agreement global finance distribution and the severe consequences. She addresses how the current political strategies have not mitigated climate change issues and the media’s failure to raise public awareness. She says that humans can address the mistake before it is too late.
Greta Thunberg gives repetitions throughout the speech to make awareness about the climate change issues that were going on, which ultimately moved the leaders of the world to create laws to battle the matter. She criticizes the world leaders’ response throughout the story by saying things such as, “How dare you…You have stolen my dreams…And you still not mature enough to tell it like it is…You are falling us” (Koester 2019). The word “you” repetition indicates that she addresses the world leaders to have climate change reforms. In addition to the word “you,” she also repeatedly uses the word “we” in her speech, saying that, “We will never forgive you”…We will not let you go away with this” ” (Koester 2019). The repetition shows that she represented all environmental activists and repeats the word to remind everyone that all environmental activists have the same goal. She uses an intimidating tone to show world leaders how their group was powerful, hoping that they would listen to them.
Reference
Koester, Vera. 2019. “Greta Thunberg.” ChemViews.