Essay Organizer

Artifact 1: Greta

Soapstone

• Speaker
  • Greta Thunberg. 15 years old. Swedish environmental activist. diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and selective mutism. daughter of opera singer Malena Ernman and actor Svante Thunberg.
• Occasion
  • On Friday August 20, 2018, Greta decided not to attend school until the 2018 Swedish general electionon  September 9 2018 to draw attention to climate change. Every day for two weeks, Thunberg was sitting quietly on the cobblestones outside parliament in central Stockholm, handing out leaflets that declare: “I am doing this because you adults are shitting on my future.”
  • In addition, her protest began after the heat waves and wildfires during Sweden’s hottest summer in at least 262 years.
• Audience
  • Youth, adults, people in power (corporations and politicians)
• Purpose
  • Promoting the view that humanity is facing an existential crisis arising from climate change
  • criticizes world leaders for their failure to take sufficient action to address the climate crisis
• Subject
  • Activism, youth, climate change, act now
• Tone
  • Urgent, straightforward, serious, passionate

Appeals to

• Ethos
  • Made lifestyle changes first (not just talk). Got her parents to change their lifestyle (persuasive). School strike based off the march for our lives protest (knowledgeable about world affairs).
• Pathos
  • When looking at the picture, the first thing we see is Greta: a lone, young girl with pigtails, sitting on the ground, a stoic facial expression, and her limbs closed in on herself. This imagery evokes an emotional response from all views, especially parents who have children just like Greta. It plays on the commonplace that children are innocent and should be protected to urge out there to want to help this girl. In order to help her, you need to listen to her message and understand what she wants.
• Logos
  • The next thing we see is her striking white sign with bold black letters. Her sign reads Skolstrejk för klimatet (School strike for climate). Notice how simplistic and minimalistic her sign is. There is no color, there are no designs, there is no anything except for her message, or her reason for being there. Using her clear and simple wording to call attention to the climate, she is appealing to her audiences sense of rationality and reasoning by making her statement seem easy to understand and follow. While unfortunately there is a complex solution to a global issue of climate change, Greta urges that we all need to first make the steps to cause change, and that politicians need to start acting. And this sign is the same sign she uses as she continues to protest all around the world spreading this simple, but urgent message wherever she goes.

Commonplaces

• Fight for what you believe in
• Every action counts
• Be the change you wish to see in the world
  • In addition, this artifact plays on a commonplace of ideals similar to the American Dream: If we work hard, we can create the changes we want to see. While this protest started in Sweden, Greta has shown that all it takes is persistence, passion, and willpower to achieve the attention you want in order to create the changes you want. One girl has become the face of an environmental revolution that started with her using her human rights to protest and speak her mind.

Kairos

• Context- elections
• Technology age (social media)

Public Response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Thunberg

• United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres endorsed the school strikes initiated by Thunberg, admitting that “My generation has failed to respond properly to the dramatic challenge of climate change. This is deeply felt by young people. No wonder they are angry.”[105] Speaking at an event in New Zealand in May 2019, Guterres said his generation was “not winning the battle against climate change” and that it was up to the youth to “rescue the planet”
• Democratic candidates for the 2020 United States presidential election such as Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, and Bernie Sanders expressed support after her speech at the September 2019 action summit in New York.[107] German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that young activists such as Thunberg had driven her government to act faster on climate change.[108]
• Thunberg and her campaign have been criticised by politicians as well, such as the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison,[109] German chancellor Angela Merkel,[110] Russian president Vladimir Putin, OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) and repeatedly by U.S. president Donald Trump.[111] The criticism ranges from personal attacks to claims she oversimplifies the complex issues involved.
• In December 2019, President Trump again mocked Thunberg after she was named Person of the Year for 2019 by Time magazine: “So ridiculous”, Trump tweeted. “Greta must work on her anger management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”
• Britain’s secretary for the environment, Michael Gove, said: “When I listened to you, I felt great admiration, but also responsibility and guilt. I am of your parents’ generation, and I recognize that we haven’t done nearly enough to address climate change and the broader environmental crisis that we helped to create.” Labour politician Ed Miliband, who was responsible for introducing the Climate Change Act 2008, said: “You have woken us up. [T]hank you. All the young people who have gone on strike have held up a mirror to our society … you have taught us all a really important lesson. You have stood out from the crowd.”
• In February 2019, Thunberg shared a stage with the then President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, where he outlined “In the next financial period from 2021 to 2027, every fourth euro spent within the EU budget will go towards action to mitigate climate change”.[125] Climate issues also played a significant role in European Parliament election in May 2019[126] as Green parties recorded their best ever result,[127] boosting their MEP seat numbers from 52 to 72.[128] Many of the gains came from northern European countries where young people have taken to the streets inspired by Thunberg

Other Notes

• Fridays For Future
• 2018 UN Climate Change Conference speech
• 2019 coordinated multi million student strikes globally
• sailed to North America where she attended the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit. Her speech there, in which she exclaimed “how dare you”, was widely taken up by the press and incorporated into music.
• Multiple honors: honorary Fellowship of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society; Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and the youngest Time Person of the Year; inclusion in the Forbes list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women (2019)[11] and two consecutive nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize (2019 and 2020). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Thunberg

 

Artifact 2: Emma

Soapstone

• Speaker
  • American activist and advocate for gun control. 18 years old. co-founded the gun-control advocacy group Never Again MSD. Her mother is a math tutor and her father is a cybersecurity attorney[11] who immigrated from Cuba to New York City in 1968.
• Occasion
  • González and other students, including fellow Parkland survivors Hogg, Kasky, and Sarah Chadwick, organized and participated in the nationwide March for Our Lives protest on March 24, 2018, with a focus on speakers and a march in Washington, DC.González spoke for six minutes, the length of time of the Parkland shooting, and paid tribute to the victims by mentioning each one by name and giving examples of things they would never again be able to do. She followed this by several minutes of silence
• Audience
  • Children, teens, young adults, adults, NRA, politicians
• Purpose
  • calling for advocacy and empowering young people to speak out against school shootings. Gun control
• Subject
  • Advocacy, youth activism, gun control
• Tone
  • Emotional, passionate, furious

Appeals to

• Ethos
  • As a high school senior she survived the February 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida.
• Pathos
  • Eyes closed. Painful expression. Very expressive. Young.
  • You can be next. Relates to school children and their families.
  • Teens feel a deeper connection
  • Very personal
• Logos
  • Clear message on sign. The message is something that should be obvious, but corporations who profit off of guns prohibit the full potential of change
  • $1.05 fact. That’s how much a student is worth. Eye opening

Commonplaces

• School is a safe space for learning
• Children should be protected
• Every step counts
• If you work hard, you will get result
• Change requires hard work

Kairos

• Everyone paying attention to the aftermath of the school shooting. Lots of media focus.

Note:

• Background is empty with no people. Just the repeated message. Professional photo

Responses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Gonz%C3%A1lez

• In March 2018, the Florida Legislature passed a bill titled the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act. It raises the minimum age for buying firearms to 21, establishes waiting periods and background checks, provides a program for the arming of some teachers and the hiring of school police, bans bump stocks, and bars potentially violent or mentally unhealthy people arrested under certain laws from possessing guns. In all, the law allocates around $400 million for implementation. Rick Scott signed the bill into law on March 9. The governor commented, “To the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, you made your voices heard. You didn’t let up and you fought until there was change.”
• González was attacked for her Fort Lauderdale speech by many from the political right wing of American politics and press. She has also faced derogatory comments made by internet trolls about her sexual orientation, short hair, and skin color. She was verbally attacked by Leslie Gibson, then the Republican candidate running unopposed for the Maine legislature and lifetime NRA member, who referred to her as a “skinhead lesbian”, whereupon 28-year-old Eryn Gilchrist filed papers to run against him, thus providing an opponent; Republican former state Senator Thomas Martin, Jr., who said that Gibson’s remarks did not represent the Maine Republican Party, and that he planned to contact the survivors to commend their courage, also filed to run for the seat. A few days later Gibson himself dropped out of the race.
• González was the target of many right-wing conspiracy theories and hoaxes since the shooting. Conspiracy theorists have falsely accused the students, including González, of being crisis actors. Benjamin Kelly, an aide to Florida state Representative Shawn Harrison, was fired after making such accusations. Donald Trump Jr. faced criticism for appearing to support the crisis actor accusations. The conspiracy theories spread about González and other Parkland survivors were named PolitiFact’s 2018 Lie of the Year.
• Following her highly publicized speech at the March for Our Lives, pro-gun activists doctored fake photos and video showing González ripping up a copy of the United States Constitution, spreading them widely on internet forums and social media. Snopes.com observed that the video was in fact a digitally manipulated Teen Vogue video of her tearing up shooting range targets.[48] Adam Baldwin defended spreading the fake video, saying it was “political satire.”

 

SPEECH

Slide 1: The Greta Effect

On Friday August 20, 2018, a 15 year old girl decided to skip school to protest outside parliament for more action against climate change. Bringing only herself and a simple message, she sat and waited. Not even a year later, more than 17,000 students in 24 countries joined this girl and took part in protesting in Friday school strikes for climate change. How did this happen?

 

Slide 2: Who is Greta?

So surprise, that 15 year old girl I just mentioned is a climate change activist names Greta Thunburg. Chances are, you may have heard of her and have an awareness of what she does. You may have seen her in a youtube video or clip of her famous speech when she told world leaders at the 2019 UN climate action summit in NY, ‘You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,’,  ‘We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth – how dare you!’. you may have seen her face on the cover of Time magazine when she was proclaimed person of the year in 2019. Orrrr youo may have seen her on social media as a meme. Some uplifting, some in innocent humor, and some not so much. You could have also seen her twitter argument with the president. But that’s enough of that. So, once again, how did this happen? How did Gretas movement sky rocket? How did she make it into mainstream culture? Where did it start?

 

Slide 3: Artifact

And that leads us into my artifact; an image of Greta at her first school strike for climate protest in Sweden. That same situation I explained in the beginning. This image is the cause of a chain reaction known as The Greta Effect: an increase in youth activism for environmental issues, usually through social media.

 

Slide 4: How did she gain traction? 

Let’s look at the Kairos of the scene:

• Greta decided not to attend school until the 2018 Swedish general electionon  September 9 2018 to draw attention to climate change. Every day for two weeks, Thunberg was sitting quietly on the cobblestones outside parliament in central Stockholm, handing out leaflets that declare: “I am doing this because you adults are shitting on my future.”
  • In addition, her protest began after the heat waves and wildfires during Sweden’s hottest summer in at least 262 years.
  • This is the perfect moment to make a change. Voting for elections is one of the most civic actions an individual can take to select leaders they want to represent them and their values. Greta took advantage of this critical moments where adults are reevaluating their values and looking for a leader to represent those value. By protesting every day before the election, she raises awareness for her cause and calls for those individuals to rethink their relation to climate change. She is also calling for the politicians to prioritize the climate question in a place where they are directly feeling the effects of it.
• Another reason why she gained traction is because of her usage of media: a photograph likely taken from a phone camera. Greta took pictures of herself protesting and posted it to social media. This is so effective because we are in a technology age. All age groups, genders, ethnicities, etc.. Have access to social media and this platform connects individuals around the world. In just one post, this artifact was made available to everyone everywhere and went viral.
  • In addition, the quality of the photo is not professional, and Greta isn’t posing. The photo seems completely authentic and gives Greta credibility in that her actions are not for one photo and then done. Greta is serious about what she is out there fighting for and this can inspire others who see her photo to do the same.

 

Slide 5: How did she call people to attention? 

So let’s analyze the picture itself and why it caught the attention of people of a global scale.

• When looking at the picture, the first thing we see is Greta: a lone, young girl with pigtails, sitting on the ground, a stoic facial expression, and her limbs closed in on herself. This imagery evokes an emotional response from all views, especially parents who have children just like Greta. It plays on the commonplace that children are innocent and should be protected to urge out there to want to help this girl. In order to help her, you need to listen to her message and understand what she wants.
• The next thing we see is her striking white sign with bold black letters. Her sign reads Skolstrejk för klimatet (School strike for climate). Notice how simplistic and minimalistic her sign is. There is no color, there are no designs, there is no anything except for her message, or her reason for being there. Using her clear and simple wording to call attention to the climate, she is appealing to her audiences sense of rationality and reasoning by making her statement seem easy to understand and follow. While unfortunately there is a complex solution to a global issue of climate change, Greta urges that we all need to first make the steps to cause change, and that politicians need to start acting. And this sign is the same sign she uses as she continues to protest all around the world spreading this simple, but urgent message wherever she goes.
• In addition, this artifact plays on a commonplace of ideals similar to the American Dream: If we work hard, we can create the changes we want to see. While this protest started in Sweden, Greta has shown that all it takes is persistence, passion, and willpower to achieve the attention you want in order to create the changes you want. One girl has become the face of an environmental revolution that started with her using her human rights to protest and speak her mind.

Slide 6: Beyond the Picture and Closing

Greta’s main point is that the adults of large corporations and in political positions are not doing enough to prevent and reverse the effects of global warming. Their failure now lays in the hands of children.

Since this artifact was published to the world, Greta has given many speeches and been very active using her newfound public attention. She protests with young activists everywhere and continues to use social media to call individuals to attention and protest. Which, in my mind, is the very definition of civic engagement.

This one picture started a global revolution in calling urgency in young people to fight for the changes they want to see in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

6 min 32 seconds yikes