Abby Schaller
Lori Bedell
CAS
8 October 2021
Evoking Climate Change Action
Climate change is a pressing issue all around the globe. In order to fix the damage that has already been done and preserve the future, civic engagement is critical. Greta Thunberg, a sixteen year old climate activist, speaks to world leaders at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit. She urges world leaders to take actions in preventing further damage to our climate. Correspondingly, the advertisement by One Earth Only demonstrates to the general public that damage has already been done to our home and their help is needed. One Earth Only’s graphic and Greta Thunberg draw attention to the ideology of climate change and the prioritization of economic benefits through their appeals of intrinsic proofs and stylistic choices.
Both Greta Thunberg and One Earth Only utilize their platforms to harness kairos as climate change destruction becomes more inevitable. The destruction of Earth has been a topic of conversation for many recent years and Greta and the advertisement highlight the severity of the problem in an urgent manner. While they both develop their messages from the urgency of our Earth’s health, they approach it from different angles. Greta Thunberg has a more forward-looking approach, while the advertisement is more present and in the now. Greta addresses world leaders’ future plans of reducing greenhouse gases by 2050 in order to salvage our climate. She further discusses how “Cutting our emissions in half in ten years, gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control”. After stating this, she discusses how 50% simply isn’t good enough for future generations (Thunberg). Upcoming children and adults deserve to live in a world that is free from the haunting negligence of world leaders. This presents how Greta’s position is focused on the consequences that are coming. She is concerned about the future rise in temperatures, as well as future generations and the world that they will have to live in. While Greta builds upon the future of our earth, the advertisement focuses on the present. The image displayed illustrates the state that our planet is currently in, it is melting, smoggy, industrial, and overall polluted. The advertisement emphasizes these characteristics to demonstrate what damage we have already done to our world. Society has polluted our air, polluted our land, and polluted our water through their industrialization. The advertisement demonstrates that this pollution is a problem now. It is not one that is coming, it is one that is already here.
The damage that has been done, or will be done, aids in influencing the audience’s emotions. Greta Thunberg and the advertisement work very similarly in appealing to pathos. Throughout her speech, Greta incorporates phrases such as “we will be watching you” (Thunberg). This statement instills a feeling of guilt and humiliation within the world leaders. The term “we”, referencing Greta Thunberg’s generation, emphasizes the fact that world leaders are now being held accountable by people a fraction of their own age. It also causes them to feel guilty through the idea that the burden of caring for our planet is now falling in the hands of children, rather than in their own. Their own failures have caused children to pick up the slack and take matters into their own hands which humiliates the leaders and leaves them feeling guilty about their negligence. Similarly, the advertisement appeals to the emotions of the general public in their statement “we are the world” (OOE). The use of the word “we” in this context causes the article to hit close to home for the audience members. It influences the public to see that they are the ones damaging the planet and they are also the ones responsible for fixing it. It instills a feeling of responsibility through opening the eyes of the audience to the fact that they are the root of the problem. Furthermore this leaves the audience feeling guilty because no one wants to be told that they are the reason our earth is dying. Greta and the advertisement manage to use the word “we” in two completely different ways but manage to instill a sense of guilt and responsibility within their audiences.
They manage to appeal to the emotions of their audiences through their stylistic choices. Greta and the advertisement alter their deliveries in order to appeal to their specific audiences through their tones. In Greta Thunberg’s speech she fights against the constraint of being a kid in a room full of powerful adults. In order to be taken seriously by world leaders Greta alters her delivery to be very deliberate. She pulls in many statistics and data to portray her knowledge on the subject of climate change and establish her ethos. Greta does this throughout her speech in order to be seen as more than just a kid, to get the world leaders to listen to her and her demand for action. This allows for Greta to develop a very serious tone to appeal to ethos and encourage world leaders to accept her argument. Likewise, the advertisement also develops a sense of seriousness with an undertone of hope. The advertisement reaches out to the general public to engage them in the act of salvaging our planet. The principal of the image is the Earth, which is full of pollution and seems to be melting. This image creates a huge sense of urgency surrounding climate change because of the current state of our earth. This urgency translates into severity through the idea of “Only One Earth” (OOE). In the corner of the advertisement we see this statement displayed. This small detail adds a lot to the advertisement because it highlights the fact that we have one chance to live and save our earth. This further helps to establish the severity of the situation and encourage audience engagement. However, the blue background inspires a sense of hope. In the advertisement’s attempt to reach the general public and prompt a feeling of change. The advertisement utilizes both the tone of severity as well as hope in an effort to reach their audience and demonstrate that their engagement can invoke change. Greta’s tone of severity, which is reinforced through her appeals to ethos, effectively applies to the world leaders in causing them to take her seriously due to her constraint of being a kid. However, the advertisement combines the tone of seriousness and hopefulness to influence general citizens to act.
Greta Thunberg and One Earth Only make similar attempts in reaching their audiences of world leaders and the general public. They seize kairos through their presentation of the damage that has been done to earth and the possibility of even more future harm. Their discussion of the severity of climate change evokes feelings of guilt and an inspiration to act within their audiences. Climate change is a real life problem. Everyday that we sit back and do nothing, we get closer and closer to the point of no return. World leaders need to act and so does the general public.
Works Cited
PBSNewsHour. “Watch: Greta Thunberg’s Full Speech to World Leaders at UN Climate Action Summit.” YouTube, YouTube, 23 Sept. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAJs dgTPJpU.
Klein, David. “Print Ads That Will Tug on Your Heart: How Emotions Improve the Effectiveness of Advertising.” Macromark, 14 Sept. 2018, https://macromark. com/blog/print-ads-that-will -tug-on-your-heart-how-emotions-improve-the- effectiveness-of-advertising.