Our House is on Fire

A Linguistic Analysis of Greta Thunberg’s Speeches

and the Representation of Climate Change Movements in the Media

Bachelorarbeit
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
Bachelor of Arts (BA)

an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

vorgelegt von;

Katharina Johanna MUHR

Matrikelnummer: 01609295

am Institut für Anglistik

im Rahmen des Seminars

Specialized Topics in Linguistics (Language and Ecology)

Begutachterin:
Ao.Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr.phil Hermine PENZ

Themenbekanntgabe: 13.12.2019

Datum der Abgabe:

13.08.2020
Table of Content

1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1

2. Climate Change and Politics .......................................................................... 2

3. Climate Strikes ................................................................................................ 4

3.1 Global Climate Strike 2015 ............................................................................... 4
3.2 Skolstreijk för Klimatet ..................................................................................... 5
3.3 Fridays for Future .............................................................................................. 5

4. Greta Thunberg ............................................................................................... 6

5. Theory............................................................................................................... 7
5.1 Critical Discourse Analysis ............................................................................... 7
5.2 Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework ....................................................... 8
5.3 Modality ............................................................................................................. 9
5.4 Lexical Cohesion and Semantic Fields .............................................................. 9
5.5 Presuppositions .................................................................................................. 9
5.6 Rhetorical Tropes ............................................................................................. 10

6. Climate Change Movements and their Representation in the Media ...... 12

6.1 Article in The Guardian................................................................................... 13
6.2 Article in The Telegraph .................................................................................. 15
6.3 Article in The Daily Mirror ............................................................................. 17

7. Greta Thunberg’s Speeches ......................................................................... 19

7.1 Our House is on Fire ........................................................................................ 19
7.2 You’re Acting Like Spoiled, Irresponsible Children....................................... 22
7.3 Can you hear me? ............................................................................................ 24

8. Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 26

9. Bibliography .................................................................................................. 28

10. Appendix ................................................................................................ 30

 1. Introduction

“We live in a strange world. But it’s the world

our generation has been handed. It’s the only
world we’ve got. We are now standing at a
crossroads in history. We are failing but have not
yet failed. We can still fix this. It’s up to us.”

Greta Thunberg at the Goldene Kamera

Film and TV Awards, Berlin, 30 March 2019

Over the past few years, global climate change has become one of the most important topics in
politics and peoples’ daily lives. In early 2019, the North American cold wave, caused by a
wavy polar vortex, was responsible for temperatures far below zero degrees and several deaths
have been directly linked to this cold wave. Central and Midwestern Europe have been suffering
from an unusual heat wave, with temperatures over 45 degrees Celsius experienced in France
for instance, for the first time in recorded history. Climate change is not only affecting our
planet, but it is also responsible for numerous deaths and the extinction of uncountable species.
On this account, people all over the world started marching the streets and protesting for more
sustainable policies . In this paper, various climate change movements will be introduced,
including the biggest and most recent Fridays For Future movement.

In the first chapter of this paper a brief overview of different policies that governments around
the world are using to fight climate change will be provided. In addition, the idea behind a
carbon tax will be explained. However, these policies do not seem to show sufficient impact on
climate change. Therefore, numerous climate change movements have been initiated, the first
Global Climate Strike 2015 counted over 50.000 participants in more than 100 countries.

The second chapter of this paper will provide an introduction and a summary of several climate
change movements and their demands towards governments. The most important person of
these recent movements is the Swedish student Greta Thunberg, who initiated the skolstreijk
för klimatet (School Strike for the Climate), to whom a distinct chapter will be dedicated. The
student abandoned her education to protest until the Swedish government reduced their carbon
emissions according to the Paris Agreement of 2016. What has started as a one-person strike
has risen to become one of the biggest movements in human history: Fridays For Future.
Unsurprisingly, Greta Thunberg and these peaceful demonstrations have evoked heavy
criticism by politicians, school principals and, needless to say, the media.

1
Before the analysis part of this paper can commence, several basic theories need to be
explained. For example, Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis, which is deeply
interconnected with his three-dimensional framework, but also the basic concept of modality,
presuppositions, lexical cohesion, and semantic fields, as well as some simple rhetoric devices
will be elaborated.

The analytical part of this paper will be divided into two parts. The first part will cover the
media representation of these climate change movements, aiming to answer the question, how
various media broadcasting channels cover this late-breaking topic of climate change
movements in terms of grammatical and lexical cohesion. For this, three different articles from
The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Daily Mirror will be linguistically analysed concerning
semantic fields and the choice and meaning of words, both regarding lexical cohesion.
Presupposition, modality, as well as rhetorical tropes will also be discussed in this part of the
paper.

The second part, however, consists of a linguistic and rhetorical analysis of several speeches
Greta Thunberg herself held at various climate rallies all around Europe, including her iconic
speech titled “Our House is on Fire” at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2019,
as well as “You’re Acting Like Spoiled, Irresponsible Children” at the European Economic and
Social Committee ‘Civil Society for rEUnaissance’ in Brussels on February 21st, 2019. Chosen
passages from some of her other speeches will also be included in this analysis to emphasise
the importance of rhetorical figures in what the Swedish climate activist calls “not a political
text” (Thunberg 2019, 2). Similar to the analysis of the newspaper articles, the speeches will be
examined in terms of lexical cohesion and her choice of words, as well as a rhetoric analysis
concerning metaphors and other figures of speech will be conducted. This analysis aims to
answer the question, in what way different rhetoric devices can help to stress and express the
intentions of this young and courageous woman in front of the world’s elite, our political
leaders, as well as a broader audience via the internet.

Context

2. Climate Change and Politics

The main regulations governments around the world use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
can, according to Joseph Romm (2018, 175f), be divided into four categories: economic,

2
technological, regulatory and forestry and land-use policies. The focus of policies of the
economic category lies on a price increase of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas
emissions as well as to provide subsidies for carbon-free energy sources. The two main ways
to achieve carbon pricing is by introducing a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax, the latter
will be explained at the end of this chapter. The purpose of such a carbon price is to “have the
economic cost of burning hydrocarbons (coal, oil, and natural gas) reflect the actual harm their
emissions cause to humans and society” (cf. Romm 2018, 175).

The technological category aims at “lowering the cost and improving the performance of low-
carbon sources” (ibid., 176). These policies take research for new materials into account as well
as the development of efficient technologies, for example LED lighting or an economically
reasonable battery for electric cars.

The aim of regulatory policies is to either reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to increase
utilisation of clean and renewable forms of energy such as wind and solar energy. These policies
include standards which are set for fuel economy, renewable energy, energy efficiency for
appliances to “incorporate a certain minimum percentage of carbon-free sources, and limits on
carbon dioxide emissions from different facilities such a s electric power plants” (2018, 176).

The last category of land and forestry policies aims at a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions
caused by deforestation and agriculture. Fortunately, these policies have already brought about
an effect: According to Romm (2018, 176), deforestation and agriculture used to be responsible
for almost twenty percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. This number has decreased to
almost ten percent today.

“A carbon tax is a tax on the carbon content of hydrocarbon fuels or on the carbon dioxide
emitted by those fuels when they are converted into energy” (Romm 2018, 176). Economically
speaking, the full economic detriment caused by CO2 can be seen as an ‘external cost’ which
can be added to the costs of fossil fuels. Romm calls this external cost the “social cost of carbon”
and states that, if this cost “could fully account for all the costs to society of emitting that
pollutant, and if the tax were equal to that social cost, then businesses and other entities would
reduce their use of fossil fuels in the most optimum and efficient manner” (Romm 2018, 177).
Several countries have introduced a carbon tax, such as Norway and Sweden, Australia and
Canada. Canada’s carbon tax is revenue neutral, meaning that the sales raised by the tax “are
returned to consumers and businesses in the form of lower personal and corporate taxes” (ibid.,
177). The United States introduced several strategies to reduce carbon pollution, such as a

3
renewable electricity standard that requires electricity suppliers to gain parts of their power
from renewable energy, including wind and solar energy (2018, 185-186). However, all these
strategies and policies have shown too little effect, causing numerous people to act in their own
person and to raise global awareness to the urgency of climate change.

3. Climate Strikes

“The adult generations have promised to stop the climate crisis, but they have
skipped their homework year after year. Climate strike is a wake-up call to
our own generation. And it is the start of a network that will solve the greatest
challenge in human history. Together. We need your hands and hearts and
smarts!” (Climate Strike, online).

For the younger generation going on climate strikes is not about skipping school or upsetting
adults, going on climate strikes is essential for their survival. Students and young people from
all over the world join together to peacefully protest to show governments on every continent
that their way of fighting climate change is not working and more vigorous measures need to
be adopted. In a report published in May 2019 by climate activist David Spratt and former
international oil, gas and coal industry executive Ian Dunlop, a 2050 scenario is introduced:
Policies fail to take effect according to the Paris Agreement, Earth has warmed up by 3° C, sea
levels have risen, and numerous ecosystems are going to collapse, such as the Amazon
rainforest, the Arctic and coral reef systems. The planet and its population will suffer from
deadly heat waves, water supplies will wane and become more and more unavailable to a vast
majority of humans (cf. Dunlop and Spratt 2019: 8). Admiral Chris Barrie stated in the foreword
of this report that “human life on earth may be on the way to extinction” (Barrie in Dunlop and
Spratt 2019: 3), and the human species may be the first to actively witness its own annihilation.

3.1 Global Climate Strike 2015

At the Global Youth Summit in May 2015 the participants created a youth manifesto pleading
to politicians to “stop talking” and to “start acting” (Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation, Online).
Therefore, students around the world were invited to join a global climate strike in November
2015. Their demands were simple: They wanted governments to transition to 100% clean
energy, to terminate fossil fuel exploration and to help victims of climate change. A live counter
on the Climate Strike homepage has counted more than 600 actions taken, with more than
50,000 people of more than 100 countries participating (climatesrike.net, 1 July 2019, Online).

4
 3.2 Skolstreijk för Klimatet

Greta Thunberg, at that time fifteen years old, did not attend school for almost two weeks. On
September 7th, 2018, only two days before Sweden’s general election, she announced that she
would continue to strike every Friday until the Swedish government’s policies are sufficient
and their country’s carbon emissions are reduced according to the Paris Agreement (Carrington,
The Guardian: 4 December 2018, Online). Greta’s action was an inspiration to innumerable
students across the globe, giving birth to a global movement: Fridays For Future.

3.3 Fridays for Future

The enthusiasm about the skolstreijk för klimatet started growing in November 2018 and strikes
began to be organised across the globe. After the Climate Change Conference in Katowice,
Poland in December 2018, the strikes continued to be carried out on all continents, with more
than 20,000 students participating in at least 270 cities (Carrington, The Guardian, 4 December
2018, Online).

On February 21st, 2019, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, was
one of the first politicians to endorse Greta Thunberg’s activism. Greta and her outstanding
climate change movement convinced the European Union’s chief executive that severe
measures need to be taken immediately: “[…] Every fourth euro spent within the EU budget
will go toward action to mitigate climate change” (Jean-Claude Juncker at a conference of the
European Economic and Social Committee).

However, politics still appear to be the younger generation’s bête noire. 15-year-old Ronja
Heimann from Germany, member of the Fridays For Future movement, stated in an interview
with the German magazine stern that she is upset by the fact that she is not allowed to vote.
Active electoral rights in Germany are in most states reserved for people above the age of 16.
Participating in these peaceful demonstrations instead of going to school is her way of
contributing to a better and greener future, since she is too young to take part in the political
process (Hauser and Saller, stern, 30 January 2019, Online).

Nevertheless, students around the world cannot be stopped. On March 15th, 2019, over 1.5
million pupils in over 2,000 cities worldwide marched the streets again to protest for better
climate change politics. This is already regarded as “one of the largest environmental protests
in history” (Barclay and Amaria, Vox, 17 March 2019, Online). Thunberg herself took part in
this protest at the root of this movement, namely in front of the Swedish parliament, where she

5
also delivered a speech. The next global climate strike took place only two months later, on
Friday, May 24th, 2019. Without having clear numbers, it is estimated that this strike invited
even more students to stand up for their own future and to cut classes (Gerretsen, CNN, 24 May
2019, Online). On June 21st of the same year, Fridays For Future Deutschland invited people
from 16 countries to the west German city of Aachen to demonstrate under the motto “Climate
Justice without borders – United For a Future” (Fridays For Future Deutschland, Online), with
an estimated 40,000 participants. Only two days before the strike took place, Aachen declared
a climate emergency state (Welt, 20 June 2019, Online), following several other cities in
Germany, such as Münster, Saarbrücken and Kiel, or, on an international scale, Los Angeles,
Vancouver and London (Jakob, zdf, 29 June 2019, Online).

4. Greta Thunberg

“The year 2078 I will celebrate my seventy-fifth birthday. If I have children,

then maybe they will spend that day with me. Maybe they will ask about you.
Maybe they will ask why you didn’t do anything, while there still was time
to act. You say you love your children above everything else. And yet you are
stealing their future.” Greta Thunberg at the United Nations Climate Change
Conference (Thunberg 2019, 15-16).

At only 15 years old, Greta Thunberg initiated a global movement, simply by not attending
school one day in August 2018. Instead of joining her classmates in school, she sat in front of
the Swedish parliament building with a handwritten banner saying ‘skolstreijk för klimatet’
(school strike for climate). She learned first about climate change when she was only eight years
old, and she understood that adults did not take the issue seriously. As the now 17-year-old
engaged more with that topic, she started wondering whether she would have a future. This
concern grew in her head and was certainly a considerable factor that led to her depression.
After forest fires broke out in Sweden due to a record heat wave in Europe, Greta decided that
something needs to be done. Sacrificing her school education to draw attention to climate
change she started her skolstreijk för klimatet on August 20th, 2018. She pledged to strike until
the Swedish government aligns with the Paris Agreement of 2016 (Watts, The Guardian, 11
March 2019, Online).

Greta Thunberg was born in 2003 to famous opera singer Malena Ernman and actor and author
Svante Thunberg. The girl since convinced her parents to make major life changes to improve
and decrease their carbon emissions: Her mother quit flying, which has been crucial to her job,
and her father gave up eating meat and made the shift to become a vegetarian. Thunberg based

6
her arguments on various documentaries and books, eventually clearing up all misconceptions
about how meat and dairy are healthy for both the human body and our planet (ibid.).

In 2015, the girl was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder
(OCD), and selective mutism (Thunberg on TEDxStockholm, 29 January 2019, Online). Some
characteristics of Asperger’s are “difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal
communication, including difficulties reading body language” (Rourke, The Guardian, 2
September 2019, Online). However, for Greta, her illness is a superpower, and to her “almost
everything is black or white” (Thunberg 2019, 7). She describes her illness as follows: “I think
in many ways that we autistic are the normal ones and the rest of the people are pretty strange”
(ibid.). British psychologist Tony Attwood, specialised on Asperger’s Syndrome, states that
people diagnosed with this type of autism are “renowned for being direct, speaking their mind
and being honest and determined and having a strong sense of social justice. […] However, the
person with Asperger[‘s] Syndrome can have difficulty with the management and expression
of emotions” (Tony Attwood, Online). After researching and reading about Greta Thunberg and
seeing her speeches online, this description fits perfectly to the today 17-year-old girl. Her quite
emotional speech “How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood” at the 2019
UN climate action summit in New York, where she travelled by sailing boat, went around the
world. During her address, the girl tears up and gets angry, she even starts screaming and
accusing world leaders to spread empty words and give false hope.

Greta Thunberg owes it to her actions in the streets as well as her powerful speeches to be
nominated not only for one, but two Nobel Peace Prizes. Her commitment to saving our planet
has also earned her the Prix Liberté, a prestigious award remunerated with 25.000 Euros, which
she donated to four different environmental organisations (n.n., Die Presse, 21 July 2019,
online).

5. Theory

5.1 Critical Discourse Analysis

While also taking social and cultural context into consideration, Critical Discourse Analysis
(CDA) is used for the study, analysis, and evaluation of discourse. Fairclough (2003, 2)
describes CDA as a social practice since it is based upon the belief that social life and language
are deeply interconnected. Hence, CDA is more than just an analysis of written and spoken
language, it is also “a problem-oriented interdisciplinary research movement, subsuming a

7
variety of approaches” including various research methods and theoretical models. What unites
these approaches is “a shared interest in the semiotic dimension of power, injustice, abuse and
political economic or cultural change in society” (Fairclough et al. 2011, 357).

Wodak (2009) states that the aim of CDA is to understand and discuss social problems that
derive from public texts and speeches in which social power abuse such as racism, homophobia,
sexism, classism, or in this case also climate change issues are present, and therefore resulting
in social consequences. This makes CDA a problem-oriented practice which attempts to
highlight social power abuse, analyse it, interpret it and make it accessible to the general public.
Thus, these immensely important topics become a subject of public debate. But to ensure that
such public texts and speeches withstand arguments of the side of the ‘accused’ – in Greta
Thunberg’s speeches this group would be climate change deniers and politicians – CDA needs
to take into account the expertise and interest of those who are subject to discursive injustice.
Diversity and flexibility are therefore crucial in its methods and approaches when discussing
complex issues and themes. CDA cannot be entirely neutral, therefore, researchers who conduct
CDA need to be transparent, their own position concerning the discourse investigation relies on
detailed explanations and theoretical justification of their own interpretations.

5.2 Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework

Janks (1997) describes Fairclough’s (1989, 1995) model for CDA which divides CDA into
three different processes as follows: The three distinctive processes are simultaneously
correlated to each other and further attached to three interrelated categories of discourse. The
first dimension is called text. This category consists of speech, writing, images or a combination
of all three. The second category Fairclough lists is called discursive practice. Here the
production or constitution of texts is described and elaborated, meaning if it is in written,
spoken, or designed form and if the text is being read, listened or viewed, for example images.
The last category is known as social practice. In this category the socio-historical conditions or
the standards of society in which discourse takes place are observed. According to Fairclough,
these three dimensions demand a very specific form of analysis: Text analysis (description),
processing analysis (interpretation) and social analysis (explanation).

Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework ensures that the analyst is free to choose in which
sequence the features of discourse will be analysed, it is not necessary to strictly begin with text
analysis and end with social analysis, as long as every single analysis is integrated and are as

8
explanatory as the others. This combination of different aspects of analysation provides the
analyst interesting patterns to describe, interpret and explain.

5.3 Modality

According to Richardson (2007, 59) modality refers to judgements, attitudes, and comments in
texts, as well as to which degree a writer is committed to their claims in the texts. Modality not
only links a text’s form to its content, but also connects the content to its function. Modal verbs
and their negations, for instance may and may not, could/could not, should/should not, will/will
not, must/must not, as well as some adverbs, such as certainly, are usually used to indicate
modality, signifying subjective beliefs and judgements of the writer or speaker (ibid. 59-60).
Modality can further be divided into two types, namely deontic and epistemic modality, or, as
Richardson refers to them, obligation and truth modality. Deontic modality is concerned with
the ability, obligation, and permission of a statement, whereas epistemic modality describes the
speaker’s assessment of the truth of a statement as well as its probability, possibility and
necessity.

5.4 Lexical Cohesion and Semantic Fields

"Related to the concept of hyponymy, but more loosely defined, is the notion
of a semantic field or domain. A semantic field denotes a segment of reality
symbolized by a set of related words. The words in a semantic field share a
common semantic property." (Brinton 2000, 112).

Lexical cohesion in a text or speech can be achieved by certain lexical devices, such as direct
repetition, which is also the most common form, synonyms and antonyms, superordinates,
general words, meronymy, which refers to hierarchical whole-part relationships between words,
and semantic fields. This paper will take a closer look at the semantic fields that occur in the
speeches and the articles about climate change movements, since all of these texts deal with
more or less the same theme, implying that there would have to be similar semantic fields
concerning the topics of nature and environment, consisting of words that share this semantic
property.

5.5 Presuppositions

Not every text shows its meaning immediately, sometimes, meaning can be hidden. According
to Richardson (2006: 63), presuppositions are “a taken-for-granted, implicit claim embedded
within the explicit meaning of a text or utterance.” Presuppositions can be marked by either

9
certain words that indicate a change of state, such as stop, begin, or continue, or implicative
verbs such as manage, or forget. Also, definite articles like the English the as well as possessive
pronouns such as his, her, my etc. are typical presupposition triggers. Another device to indicate
presuppositions are the so-called wh-questions, such as why, ‘who’, when etc. As an example,
Richardson (2006: 63) lists the headline of an article published in The Guardian: “Why do
Islamist terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and Hamas want to crush the West and destroy Israel?
[…]” This question triggers two presuppositions, namely that terrorist groups actually “do want
to crush ‘the West’ and destroy Israel” (ibid. 64). The second presupposition is in this case that
both al-Qaeda and Hamas can be identified as terrorist groups and both of these groups want to
do both of the above-mentioned things.

Richardson also lists a fourth device to trigger presuppositions, namely adjectives and nouns
that modify noun phrases, which he calls ‘nominal presuppositions’ (2006, 64). As an example,
he lists a headline from the Daily Express: “Britain’s asylum system takes new hammering”
(ibid.), presupposing that Britain’s asylum system has already experienced hammerings in the
past.

5.6 Rhetorical Tropes

Richardson (2006, 65f.) is of the opinion that journalists are not able to convey objectivity and
genuine truth in their reports and therefore need to rely on rhetorical tropes to convince their
readers to endorse their opinions and perspectives. Rhetorical tropes are not based on the
arrangement of words like rhetorical schemes, but rather on the denotation and connotation of
words and their actual meaning. Richardson lists five rhetorical tropes which are in his opinion
the most useful for newspaper analysation: hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy, neologism, and
puns.

− Hyperbole

A hyperbole creates rhetorical effect by excessive exaggeration, triggering sensation and

humour, primarily used in tabloid papers. However, sometimes using hyperboles can lead to
the article suggesting racism, sexism and other discriminating tones. Richardson gives an
example of an article published in the Sun, Britain’s most notorious tabloid paper. In the article,
a traffic accident is converted into a story about immigration, exposing how racist hyperboles
linger in some reports (Richardson 2006, 65-66).

10
 − Metaphor

“A metaphor, to put it simply, is a story that describes something as if it were something else”
(Stibbe 2015, 63). Metaphors are a quite familiar rhetorical trope where one thing, the tenor,
receives attributes of another thing, the vehicle. The common ground of these two parts is called
the ‘tertium comparationis’. In the analysis part of this paper, numerous different metaphors
will be introduced and explained.

− Metonymy

Another important rhetorical trope is metonymy, which is defined as ‘a form of substitution in

which something that is associated with X is substituted for X’ (Jasinski in Richardson 2006,
67). Pars pro toto and totum pro parte are two forms of metonymy, where a part of a whole is
used to express the whole, as in ‘roof’ for ‘house’, and vice versa, as in ‘Germany won the
finale’ instead of ‘the German national football team won the finale’.

− Neologism

Neologism is also often used to create rhetorical power. In neologism, existing words and
phrases receive new meanings in various ways. The first way is by adding pre- or suffixes, such
as ‘-gate’, as can be seen by the recent topic of the ‘Ibiza-Gate’ in Austria. Also, the shift in the
meaning of words can be used to create neologisms, ‘to Google’ used as a verb is a perfect
example for that. Another way to construct neologisms is the blending of already existing
words, such as ‘smog’, which is a combination of the words ‘smoke’ and ‘fog’. The latter is
often used in journalism (Richardson 2006, 70).

− Puns

The last important rhetorical trope that will be analysed in this paper are puns, also known as
wordplay. According to Richardson (2006, 70), puns can be divided into three categories:
homographic puns, which are words that are written identically but carry a different meaning;
ideographic puns, where words are substituted with other words that sound similar, but not
entirely identical; and homophonic puns, meaning words are interchanged with other words that
sound identical, but do not share similarities in meaning whatsoever.

These rhetorical tropes will be of great importance during the analysis of both the newspaper
articles about climate change, as well as in the examination of Greta Thunberg’s speeches.

11
Analysis

6. Climate Change Movements and their Representation in the Media

The climate change movements under Greta Thunberg have evoked a large amount of criticism
among politicians, school principals and parents. Theresa May, to give one example, stated that
“young people who protested against climate change […] increased teachers’ workloads and
wasted lesson time.” She is of the opinion that the pupils should attend school so they can
become the professionals who are needed to fight climate change eventually (Watts,
Independent: 15 February 2019, Online). Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour party, on the
other hand tweeted on February 15th that it is the future of today’s school kids that is at stake
and that it is “inspiring to see them making their voices heard” (Jeremy Corbyn on Twitter,
February 15th, 2019).

For the first analytical part of this paper, three different newspaper articles dealing with the
Global Climate Strikes as well as an interview with Greta Thunberg will be linguistically
analysed concerning semantic fields, the choice and meaning of words, modality and rhetorical
tropes. Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis and the inevitably connected Three-
Dimensional Framework will also be taken into consideration. On that account, however, can
already be said that the discursive dimension of the framework will not be included in terms of
images, since all images in the chosen articles are simply portraits of Greta Thunberg to create
a more inviting layout of the article and friendlier user experience.

The first article that is going to be analysed is an interview with Greta Thunberg by Jonathan
Watts, “Greta Thunberg, schoolgirl climate change warrior: ‘Some people can let things go. I
can’t.’”, published in The Guardian (online) on March 11th, 2019. The second article,
“Thousands of children descend on Westminster for second school strike”, by Yohannes Lowe,
published in The Telegraph (online) on March 15th, 2019, covers the topic of the second Global
Climate Strike of March 15th, 2019. To introduce a contrast between a broadsheet newspaper
and a tabloid paper, the last article “Pupils across UK leave lessons to join climate change
protests”, published by Oliver Milner on March 15th, 2019, in The Daily Mirror (online), will
be contemplated as well in this chapter.

In all three articles, roughly eight semantic fields can be found, namely nature and environment,
school, places, organisations and related events, government and politics, people, industries
and professions and numbers. Only slight differences appear during the perusal, as not every

12
article covers the exact same topic. A more detailed analysis and commentary of some of these
semantic fields with examples will be provided within the subchapters according to each article.

According to Richardson (2006, 47), “the analysis of particular words used in a newspaper text
is almost always the first stage of any text or discourse analysis.” He states that words can have
connoted and denoted meanings and that different words, which convey the message of any
text, shape the story itself in a straightforward and inevitable way (2006, 48). All three articles
convey a rather positive position towards the climate strikes and Greta Thunberg, however,
critics or climate science deniers are not necessarily represented as opponents or even villains,
as will be discussed within the following subchapters.

Within this lexical analysis of these articles, the field of naming and reference as well as
predication becomes especially interesting in the case of Greta Thunberg, who is described in
numerous and yet various ways throughout the three articles by means of predicative nouns,
attributes, collocations or rhetorical figures in general as well as presuppositions.

6.1 Article in The Guardian

As one of the most renowned broadsheet newspapers in the United Kingdom, The Guardian
provides noticeably insightful and sophisticated articles. The interview with Greta Thunberg,
which was conducted by Jonathan Watts and published a few days before the second global
climate strike, provides an abundance of rhetorical tropes and figures as well as a remarkable
number of semantic fields. For instance, the theme of industries and professions is represented
by words and phrases such as ‘opera singer[s]’, ‘actor and author’, ‘scientist’, ‘career’, ‘fossil
fuel lobbyists’, ‘journalists’, ‘politicians’, ‘entrepreneur’, ‘raise investment’, ‘company’,
‘commercial’, ‘profit’, ‘campaigners’, and ‘president’. In the article, hardly any valuation of
these professions and associated terms is noticeable, which is typical for a broadsheet paper
such as The Guardian.

Government and politics is also quite present in this article, for instance ‘parliament (building)’,
‘protests’, ‘gun laws’, ‘national elections’, ‘political action’, ‘political agenda’, ‘politicians’,
‘government’, ‘Paris climate agreement’, ‘policies’, or ‘world leaders.’ To avoid direct
repetition and to construct lexical cohesion, the use of synonyms and hyponymy can be noticed,
such as ‘politicians’ and ‘world leaders’, ‘chancellor’ and ‘president’.

Reference, naming, and predication are very crucial in articles to ensure it is clear what is
discussed and to avoid constant repetition, especially when the text deals with a specific person,

13
in this case Greta Thunberg. This can be achieved by the use of predicative nouns, adjectives
and pronouns, collocations, attributes and rhetorical figures. Greta Thunberg is referred to in
the text in various ways, such as ‘school climate change warrior’, ‘the pigtailed teenager’, which
is a characterisation in terms of her iconic braided hair, ‘the loner’, ‘a figurehead’, ‘the
teenager’, ‘the girl who once slipped into despair’, ‘a beacon of hope’, ‘the best news for the
climate movement in decades’, ‘vegan’, ‘the 16-year-old’ or ‘the activist’. The use of personal
pronouns such as ‘she’ and ‘her’ also indicates reference. Without really judging the person
herself, Greta is described as “a model of determination, inspiration and positive action” (Watts,
The Guardian, 11 March 2019, Online).

In terms of modality, the use of the modal verb ‘will’ is used to express high probability, for
example: “[…] when she returns to the cobblestones […] it will be as a figurehead for a vast
and growing movement”. Later in the article it is stated that Greta’s parents told her that
“Everything will be all right”, indicating that her parents are quite certain that climate change
will have a positive outcome eventually, although they cannot be sure about that issue. Greta
herself stated that she realised “[she] could make a difference”, with the modal verb ‘could’
expressing her attitude towards her own capabilities. As Thunberg has already experienced
bullying first-hand, she stated: “[…] there will be a lot of hate […]. I think that must be because
they see us as a threat”, meaning that she cannot be one hundred per cent certain, but she can
assume that this is the reason why people on social media have been attacking her (Watts, The
Guardian, 11 March 2019, Online).

Presupposition can also be found quite frequently in this article. For example: “I kept thinking
about it […]” indicates, that Greta has at some point already been thinking about climate change
and has never stopped doing so. In a different paragraph it is stated, that “[p]eople with selective
mutism have a tendency to worry more than others”, indicating that all people do worry,
nevertheless, however, the presupposition that all people worry is triggered by the phrase “more
than others”. In the following paragraph the phrase “stronger climate policies” is used,
signifying that there are already climate policies, although they are not as strong. A similar
phrasing appears shortly after: “That will require far more pressure on politicians”, the trigger
“far more” indicates that there already is pressure on politicians.

Throughout the article various figures of speech can be found. For example, Greta’s parents are
described as ‘guinea pigs’, which is a metaphor meaning that they were the first volunteers to
undergo Greta’s power of persuasion, similar to lab rats and other rodents used for scientific
experiments. In the text the rhetorical figure of a synecdoche is used: ‘cobblestones’ is used to

14
describe the space outside the Swedish parliament building, where Greta used to sit every
Friday. This is a typical example of a pars pro toto.

Overall, the interview with Greta Thunberg, conducted by Jonathan Watts and published in The
Guardian works as an ideal example for an article in a sophisticated broadsheet paper. The
journalist avoids giving his own opinion and point of view but rather presents an objective
overview of the situation evolving around Greta Thunberg and her climate strikes. With over
two thousand words the article in The Guardian is also the most comprehensive of all three
articles that are analysed in this paper, ideally tailored for a well-educated audience that
appreciates sophisticated and serious reading.

6.2 Article in The Telegraph

The Telegraph is a famous British newspaper, considered to be a broadsheet paper. However,

in comparison to The Guardian, The Telegraph uses deliberately more colloquial expressions
than its more sophisticated opponent. The article taken from The Telegraph was published by
Yohannes Lowe on March 15th, the same day the second school strike took place. With
approximately six hundred words the article is noticeably shorter than the first one, focussing
on the second school strike rather than Greta Thunberg as a person, which makes it difficult to
compare these two articles directly in terms of content. However, concerning the choice of
words and the overall structure of the article it offers a great overview on the difference between
these two broadsheet newspapers.

While the article in The Guardian is based on an interview with Greta Thunberg, the article in
The Telegraph is a report on the event of the second school strike and a rather detailed
description of the procedure of the strike in Westminster. It is not stated in the article whether
the journalist, Yohannes Lowe, attended the school strike himself or whether it is just a
summary from other articles. Nevertheless, the report gives the impression of being quite
objective, with little to no indications of the author’s own opinions. However, this will be taken
more closely into consideration later in this subchapter.

The semantic field of school appears in this article through words such as ‘school children’,
‘students’, ‘lesson time’, ‘teacher’s workloads’, ‘studying’, ‘a-levels’, the naming of the ‘Mill
Hill County High School’, ‘exam’, the listing of the subjects ‘Geography’ and ‘Politics’,
‘pupils’, ‘lunchtime detentions’, ‘learning’, and that these school strikes are an excuse for
students to ‘truant from their lessons.’

15
The topic of places also is remarkably present in this article, which can be seen by phrases such
as ‘Westminster’, famous London landmarks ‘Houses of Parliament’, ‘Parliament square’,
‘Downing Street’, ‘Buckingham Palace’, ‘Trafalgar Square’, ‘Nelson’s Column’, ‘Westminster
Bridge’ and ‘Waterloo Bridge Roundabout’, other cities in the United Kingdom such as
‘Edinburgh’, ‘Canterbury’, ‘Oxford’, ‘Cambridge’ and ‘London’ itself, and the naming of
countries like ‘Germany’, ‘Sweden’ and ‘Australia.’ The rubric of organisations and related
events is represented by the naming of ‘Youth Strike 4 Climate’, ‘UK Student Climate
Network’, ‘campaign’, ‘Schools 4 Climate Action’ and the ‘Association of School and College
Leaders (ASCL).’

The words ‘school children’, ‘students’, ‘pupils’, and the very colloquial expression
‘youngsters’ are used synonymously in this article, creating a quite strong form of lexical
cohesion. The denotated meaning of these terms can, however, simply be summarized into
‘people who attend school’. An example for a rhetorical figure is hidden at the end of the article,
as it is stated that students use the ‘cloak’ of attending the marches, meaning that the
demonstrators use the marches as an excuse for not having to attend school.

This report already commences with one big presupposition, namely that pupils around
Westminster took part in the “second strike”, indicating that there already has been a school
strike before. In a later statement by Anna Taylor, co-founder of the UK Student Climate
Network, another presupposition can be identified. She states that “the Government was failing
to recognise the severity of the crisis”, implying that the Government has at least tried to
understand the crisis and its severity. In the first few paragraphs it says: “A few of the placards
read […]”, indicating that the demonstrators were carrying placards with them, although this
was never stated before in the article.

As already mentioned before, critics of the movement are not described as negative opponents.
The article says “school leaders have warned of the dangers of pupils missing valuable lesson
time”, which presents the mentioned school leaders as worried parental figures who do not want
the children to be harmed, rather than depicting them as the strict headmasters who threaten the
students with detention.

However, in relation to the overall length of the article, quite a large fraction of the report deals
with the criticism of Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College
Leaders, and other school leaders as well as Theresa May against these climate strikes. This
fact, as well as the rather aggravated phrasing in the beginning of the article, that “[t]he

16
demonstrations caused traffic to be severely hampered […]” gives the impression that the
author is not quite pleased with this movement. Obviously, this cannot be said for sure and is
rather a subjective opinion on this article.

The Telegraph is widely known to be associated with the Conservative Party. In terms of
climate change, however, The Telegraph has published articles in the past few years that suggest
that climate change is not to be taken seriously, calling climate change activists and those of
the opinion that the climate crisis is indeed a crisis ‘warmists’. Hence, it can be assumed that
the author of this article is likely to be categorised as climate change denier.

6.3 Article in The Daily Mirror

The last article that is going to be analysed was written by Oliver Milner and was published in
the tabloid paper The Daily Mirror on the same day as the previously discussed article from
The Telegraph. With roughly seven hundred words it is slightly longer than the previously
analysed report, however, these articles share more similarities in terms of topic: Both texts are
actually reporting on the second school climate strike.

Already at the beginning it is quite clear that this article was published in a tabloid paper. This
is because of the very simplified, short and clear syntax. What is striking about this report – and
about the previously discussed one, for that matter – is that quite a vast number of phrasings is
identical or at least strikingly similar to the article in The Telegraph, for example the selection
of examples of the placards the demonstrators carried with them. Both the article in The
Telegraph as well as the article in The Daily Mirror chose “by the time we’re in charge it will
be too late”, “we want you to panic” and “the greatest threat to the planet is the belief someone
else will save it”. The Daily Mirror also picked the same statement by Anna Taylor in which
she states that the Government was failing to recognise the severity of this crisis, again
triggering the presupposition that the Government was at least trying to understand this crisis
as a crisis. However, this might only be coincidental.

This report focuses on the semantic fields of names and nature and environment. Students’
names, who participated in the protest, such as ‘Joe Crabtree’, ‘Anna Taylor’, ‘Scarlet Possnett’,
‘Marianne Mylchreest’, ‘Anna Arbuckle’, and ‘Lucy’, as well as the names of notable people
such as Labour Party leader ‘Jeremy Corbyn’, general secretary of the Association of School
and College Leaders ‘Geoff Barton’, Education Secretary ‘Damian Hinds’, Environment
Secretary ‘Michael Gove’, and, of course ‘Greta Thunberg’ appear quite frequently in the

17
article, creating a comprehensible and relatable atmosphere for the readers which lets them
identify themselves with the issue. It can be assumed that the names of the interviewees have
been changed editorially, firstly to generate anonymity, but also to provide the article with even
more rhetorical power by using alliterative sounds, such as ‘Marianna Mylchreest’ and ‘Anna
Arbuckle’.

Words and phrases such as ‘climate change’, ‘planet, ‘environment(al)’, ‘dogs’, ‘stop the ice
from melting’, ‘world will heat up’, ‘ice will melt’, ‘polar bears’, ‘penguins’ and ‘global
temperature rises’ can be assigned to the topic of nature and environment. For the article,
children between the age of six to 20 have been interviewed, which also has an effect on the
phrasing in general. The overall style of the report appears to be rather childlike and simple,
which is a typical characteristic for tabloid papers.

According to Richardson (2006: 63), presuppositions are “a taken-for-granted, implicit claim

embedded within the explicit meaning of a text or utterance.” Presuppositions in a text can be
marked in various ways, for example through specific words which summon a presupposed
meaning when used, such as in ‘stop the ice from melting’ in this article. This phrase triggers
the presupposition that the ice is already melting. Presuppositions can further be indicated
through the definite article ‘the’. To give an example from the article: ‘the situation’
presupposes that there is a situation, namely the climate crisis. Additionally, the phrasing
“students walked out of lessons to protest in Ireland” indicates that the students have been in
school up until this point of the day, when they went to take part in the protests. In this article,
presuppositions triggered by wh-questions occur for the first time during this analysis. “[…]
[C]hildren should be learning in school about why climate change matters and how political
processes work” indicates that climate change indeed does matter, and political processes
somehow also do work.

Overall, this article presents mainly paratactical structure to please the simple audience of The
Daily Mirror, again proving its status as a typical tabloid newspaper format. The author’s
attitude towards Greta Thunberg, climate change and the therefore connected school strikes
cannot be this easily identified. However, the paper has been associated with the Labour Party
since World War II, and although their ideologies in terms of climate change are far from being
‘green’, they still are quite progressive compared to those of the Conservative Party.

18
 7. Greta Thunberg’s Speeches

For more than two years now Greta Thunberg has been skipping school on Fridays to strike for
our climate. What started as a solo project quickly grew to be a global movement, naturally
drawing the media’s attention on these school strikes for climate. As this movement’s solemn
face, Greta Thunberg more than once since had the opportunity to speak in front of our world’s
leaders, among them the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and, after her journey to New York via sailing boat, she even met
former President of the United States Barack Obama. Her words and actions not only moved
millions of people to act on climate change and demonstrate on the streets for better policies
concerning carbon taxes and other measures to slow down climate change, but also earned
political and scientific support.

In this analytical part of the paper three of her speeches, published in her collection of speeches
“No One is Too Small to Make a Difference” (2019), will be analysed in terms of word choice
and lexical cohesion including semantic fields, rhetorical tropes such as metaphors, but also
modality and presuppositions. Similar to the analysis of the newspaper articles, Fairclough’s
Critical Discourse Analysis and his three-dimensional framework will also be taken into
consideration. In terms of text analysis it can already be said that each of the speeches are
overall a call for action towards politicians and world leaders to start listening to science and
acknowledge the fact that climate change is indeed a crisis much worse than any economic
crisis our world has ever experienced.

7.1 Our House is on Fire

Our House is on Fire is one of the most iconic lines of all of Greta Thunberg’s speeches. This
speech was held at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on 25 January 2019 in
front of the global elite. “At places like Davos, people like to tell success stories” (Thunberg
2019, 20). The town in Switzerland usually creates the scenery for important global meetings,
such as discussions about Brexit, climate change issues or global trade.

Greta Thunberg begins her speech with impervious facts based on research by the IPCC, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Mankind has less than twelve years left to reverse
the consequences of our mistakes, meaning that people around the world need to change in all
aspects to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by at least fifty per cent. Thunberg states that
mankind is on its way to fail but has not yet failed. She describes the climate crisis as “the

19
greatest and most complex challenge that Homo sapiens have ever faced. The main solution,
however, is so simple that even a small child can understand it” (Thunberg 2019, 21).

Thunberg elaborates: “But their financial success has come with an unthinkable price-tag.”
Here, Thunberg aims criticism at politicians and world leaders, putting a metaphorical price-
tag on their actions. This price-tag is the tenor of this metaphor, borrowing the attributes from
the consequences of our actions. The tertium comparationis is the high price which has to be
paid in terms of climate change, for example heavier rainstorms, hotter summers and so forth.

Another important metaphor in this speech lies already in the very first iconic line “Our House
is on Fire” (Thunberg 2019, 19). This metaphor is not very hard to comprehend, ‘Our House’,
in this case the tenor, is supposed to represent our world, which borrows the tenor’s attributes.
The tertium comparationis here is that both our homes and our world are where we live.
However, in this sentence is also a secondary metaphor hidden, namely the fire, which is the
tenor, borrowing attributes of the vehicle, which could be described as climate change. The
common ground of these parts is the burning heat we can feel on our very own bodies.

Naturally, the semantic field of nature and environment is represented by several terms and
phrases throughout the speech, for instance ‘CO2 emissions’, ‘methane gas’, ‘Arctic
permafrost’, ‘Homo sapiens’, ‘climate crisis’, ‘greenhouse gases’, ‘1.5° C of warming’,
‘survival’, ‘biosphere’ etc. Another predominant semantic field could be described as business
and industry. In this group words such as ‘success’, ‘financial success’, ‘political movements’,
‘media’, ‘business’, ‘politicians’, ‘money’, ‘growth’, ‘economics’ and ‘crisis’ can be
categorised. These words and semantic fields are of great use to create a lexical cohesion
throughout the speech, however, Greta Thunberg values different aspects of elocution.

In terms of modality, Greta Thunberg’s intentions and beliefs are quite clear. She is of the
opinion that mankind and our planet are facing an irreversible climate crisis and that measures
to at least slow this change down need to be taken immediately. This is exactly what she states
in her speech when she says: “We have to stop our emissions of greenhouse gases” (Thunberg
2019, 21). Both ‘have to’ and ‘must’ express obligations, leaving hardly any room for
interpretation. At the beginning of her speech, Greta uses the adjective phrase ‘absolutely
necessary’, indicating the urgency of the situation.

Greta Thunberg constantly speaks of ‘the climate crisis’ and ‘the challenge’, triggering the
presupposition that there is such a thing as the climate crisis and a challenge. In this speech,

20
numerous other presuppositions can be identified, for instance ‘our mistakes’. This indicates
that we indeed did make mistakes, the possessive pronoun ‘our’ is in this case the trigger. The
same principle can be adopted here: ‘our emissions’, signifying that we do produce emissions.
The sentence “But their financial success has come with an unthinkable price-tag” (Thunberg,
2019, 20) also suggests that the people telling their success stories already have experienced
financial success. Another presupposition lies hidden beneath the verb ‘fail’. Thunberg states
that “we have failed”, but also politicians, political movements and the media have failed,
indicating that at least at one point these instances have tried, but nevertheless did not succeed
in their intentions.

To emphasise her words, Greta Thunberg works with numerous anaphoric structures in her
speech, which is just another possibility to describe direct repetition. For instance, towards the
end of her address, she repeatedly states “I want you to …” with the additional requests to the
audience. For instance: “I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. […] I
want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire” (Thunberg
2019, 24). She also uses the phrase “the bigger […] the bigger […]” in a recurring pattern, for
example “The bigger your carbon footprint – the bigger your moral duty” (ibid.). Earlier in her
speech she also begins all her sentences with the word ‘either’ and finishes the same sentences
with the phrase ‘or we don’t’: “Either we prevent a 1.5° C of warming or we don’t. […] Either
we choose to go on as a civilization or we don’t” (ibid., 21). This rhetorical device gives her
speech the necessary power and force she intends to convey, similar to Martin Luther King Jr.’s
iconic speech, in which he repeats the phrase “I have a dream […]”.

Greta Thunberg is of course now only a seventeen-year-old girl who skipped school in order to
protest against climate change, which some people still do not want or simply are not able to
understand and acknowledge as a real threat. Thus, it is quite comprehensible that some people
are of the opinion that her words are not to be understood literally and that she does not spread
truthful statements. However, Greta Thunberg is aware that billions of people around the globe
are listening to her words. Therefore, she is especially careful when writing a speech.

“[…] I often ask for input. I also have a few scientists that I frequently ask for
help on how to express certain complicated matters. I want everything to be
absolutely correct so that I don’t spread incorrect facts, or things that can be
misunderstood” (Thunberg 2019, 30).

Therefore, it can be assumed that – if one takes a closer and critical look at this discourse –
Greta Thunberg aims to reach people around the world with her knowledge and influence to

21
teach about climate change and which consequences for mankind and innumerable other species
can be associated with it.

7.2 You’re Acting Like Spoiled, Irresponsible Children

“We need to focus every inch of our being on climate change, because if we
fail to do so then all our achievements and progress have been for nothing and
all that will remain of our political leaders’ legacy will be the greatest failure
of human history” (Thunberg 2019, 37).

The second speech to be analysed within this paper is titled “You’re Acting Like Spoiled,
Irresponsible Children” and was held in front of the European Economic and Social Committee
during the event ‘Civil Society for rEUnaissance’ in Brussels on 21 February 2019.

As usual, Greta begins her speech with a brief introduction of herself before asking Anuna,
Adélaïde, Kyra, Gilles, Dries, Toon and Luisa, school strike representatives from different
countries around the world, to join her on the stage. In front of the headquarters of the European
Union, millions of students were striking for a better climate, while Greta Thunberg delivered
a memorable speech. She mentions that these millions of students in the streets give the people
hope. However, the students striking are not hopeful since they have to wait until they grow up
to supersede the ones in power right now. Politicians right now hardly speak about the climate
crisis, not even when they speak about school strikes, they only try to change the subject every
time the climate crisis is addressed. Thunberg states that our current political system is based
on competition, that the only thing that counts is to win and get power. She wishes for a more
cooperative system that enables us to share our planet’s resources. Greta tries to convince the
politicians to “focus every inch of our being on climate change”, otherwise “they will be
remembered as the greatest villains of all time, because they have chosen not to listen and not
to act” (Thunberg 2019, 37). Thunberg addresses the EU’s proposition to reduce all greenhouse-
gas emissions by forty-five per cent by 2030 in comparison to the emissions in 1990, and how
people think that this is quite ambitious. However, in these calculations aviation and shipping
are not included, which means that these numbers need to be reduced by at least eighty per cent
to avoid that our planet will heat up by 1.5 degrees Celsius. Towards the end of her speech,
Greta Thunberg courageously stands up to all politicians and tells them to strike in the streets
instead of the children, or even join them to “speed up the process” (ibid. 39).

In this speech, the semantic field of nature and environment is again predominant. Words and
phrases such as ‘biosphere’, ‘air’, ‘oceans’, ‘soil’, ‘forests’, ‘greenhouse-gas emissions’, and
‘Arctic permafrost’ share this semantic property. Greta Thunberg also uses the semantic field

22
of time very wisely to create a feeling of urgency. ‘Today’, ‘not enough time’, ‘2020’, ‘next
year’, ‘for decades’, ‘once again’, ‘of all time’, ‘still time’, ‘future’ and ‘speed up’ are perfect
examples for this semantic field.

In terms of rhetoric devices in this speech, the title provides already quite an eye-catcher:
“You’re acting like spoiled, irresponsible children.” Thunberg uses a simile to compare our
world leaders and most important politicians with the particle of comparison ‘like’ to children,
which are not only unable to make important decisions but are on top of that used to
overindulgence and cannot take responsibility for their actions. The use of this simile creates
the powerful image of the incapability of our politicians in comparison to the actual children
standing up for their beliefs in the streets for more than two years now. Another mighty rhetoric
device used in this speech is the metaphor hidden in the phrase “they sweep their mess under
the carpet” to indicate that the consequences of the actions – or inactions for that matter – of
our politicians do not really carry any aftermath with them. Also, Thunberg compares the
world’s leaders to the “greatest villains of all time”, triggering associations in the recipients’
minds of villains in movies and books.

Presuppositions can be found in this speech in various ways. For example the word ‘new’ in
the phrasing “we need a whole new way of thinking” triggers the presupposition that we already
do have a way of thinking, however, one that has brought humanity into this situation. Greta
also mentions that “we must stop competing with each other”, indicating that we are competing
with each other right now. In the same paragraph she says that “[w]e need to start living within
the planetary boundaries”, suggesting that at this point in time we do not live within these
boundaries.

Again, Greta’s intentions are quite clear: She wants politicians to act and not just talk. This
mode of modality can be seen by the frequency of the verbs ‘must’ and ‘need to’: “That must
come to an end, we must stop competing with each other, we need to cooperate and work
together […]” (Thunberg 2019, 36). This direct repetition also stresses the previously
mentioned urgency. She is also positive that if our political leaders do not act in time “they will
be remembered as the greatest villains of all time” (ibid. 37).

Overall, it can clearly be stated that Greta Thunberg only has our planet’s health as well as its
ecological wellbeing in her mind and is willing to do everything she can to ensure this.
However, during her journey throughout numerous European countries as well as across the

23
Atlantic Ocean to the United States she has encountered criticism and hatred. “We have started
to clean up your mess and we will not stop until we are done” (Thunberg 2019, 40).

7.3 Can you hear me?

The last speech to be analysed within this paper was held in London, on 23 April 2019 at the
Houses of Parliament. 150 members and advisers of the United Kingdom parliament were
addressed in Greta Thunberg’s speech, clearly stating what the problem really is: “You did not
act in time”, the girl says.

Greta Thunberg begins her speech like almost every other speech so far, with a brief
introduction of herself. She has come to the conclusion that she is the face of this revolution
and adds to her introduction: “And I speak on behalf of future generations” (Thunberg 2019,
57). She continues that she understands that people do not want to listen to her since she is only
a child, however, she is only repeating what scientists say. Thunberg addresses the criticism
she has been facing for a long time, that people are concerned with all the students missing
school. They would love to go back to school, she claims, as soon as the people in power realise
the seriousness of this situation and give the children a future. “Is that really too much to ask?”

Amidst all seriousness of the speech, one can see the hints of irony and sarcasm in this address.
Thunberg is speaking about herself and her sister Beata, and that in the year 2030 they will be
in their mid-twenties. “That is a great age, we have been told. When you have all of your life
ahead of you. But I am not so sure it will be that great for us” (Thunberg 2019, 57f). She
proceeds that she was told that in her future she could go and live anywhere and become
anything she wanted to, however, she now is not sure anymore whether she will have a future
at all. She accuses the Members of Parliament directly, but also world leaders in general to have
given the youth false hope and to have lied to them, and that they will be the ones to carry the
consequences without being responsible for the mess of climate change. Later in this speech
Thunberg mentions the UK’s “very creative” carbon accounting, stating that the UK claim to
have reduced their carbon emissions by thirty-seven percent. However, “these numbers do not
include emissions from aviation, shipping and those associated with imports and exports. If
these numbers are included the reduction is around [ten] per cent since 1990 – or an average of
0.4 per cent a year […]” (Thunberg 2019, 62).

She criticises that people’s answers to the problems of climate change most of the time end up
being dismissed because “we don’t have any solutions to the climate crisis.” However,

24
Thunberg states that humanity never had solutions before when a new problem arose, such as
going to the moon, ending a war or the invention of new technologies. The first step to a solution
for climate change would be to treat climate change as a crisis and start listening to the people
who worked on that issue for decades. “You don’t listen to the science because you are only
interested in solutions that will enable you to carry on like before” (Thunberg 2019, 67).
Thunberg says that to avoid a climate breakdown cathedral thinking will be required, referring
to one of her previous speeches titled “Cathedral thinking”, which she held the day after Notre
Dame Cathedral burned down in Paris on 18 April 2019. By pointing to this speech, she
expresses her wish for the same measures to be taken, the same sorrow and despair to be felt
for climate change as has been for the burning down of Notre Dame. Within a matter of hours,
billions of Euros have been collected to ensure the reconstruction of Paris’ famous cathedral.
Yet there is apparently neither money nor any other possibility to ensure the conservation of
our planet (cf. Thunberg 2019, 45-54).

Again, this speech is backed up by facts collected and published by the IPCC, stating that our
carbon dioxide emissions need to be cut in half within the next ten years. Thunberg repeatedly
uses the terms ‘CO2 emissions’, ‘amounts of carbon dioxide’, ‘emissions’ and ‘numbers’
synonymously. These terms as well as ‘oil and gas fields’, ‘Global Carbon Project’, ’coal power
plants’, ‘gas power stations’, ‘Arctic permafrost’, ‘toxic air pollution’ and others could be
classified as one semantic field called climate change issues.

When Greta speaks about how we need to reduce our carbon emissions, she mentions that these
calculations do not include “unforeseen tipping points and feedback loops” as well as “already
locked-in warming hidden by toxic air pollution”. Hence, these measures and recommendations
are “just calculations. Estimations”, indicating the vagueness of these by using the terms
synonymously. In the same paragraph she demonstrates the contrast that whatever is going to
happen can happen “a bit sooner or later”, using these antonyms to express the uncertainty of
climate change. This paragraph is overflowing with indicators of modality, namely ‘may’, ‘be
certain’ or ‘approximately’. Hence, no one can say for sure, when the catastrophe will reach its
tipping point exactly, however, she is positive that it will happen within the next one or two
decades. The verb ‘must’ in this paragraph also indicates Greta’s intentions and the belief in
her own words.

Thunberg uses the verbs ‘halt‘ and ‘slow’, ‘lower’ and finally ‘stop’ not only synonymously,
but also to increase the severity of their meaning. Later in that speech Greta puts the antonyms
‘the easiest’ and ‘the hardest’ in contrast to each other do demonstrate the difficulty – and yet

25
ease – of our current situation. The rhetoric device of an anaphora has the same effect as direct
repetition. In this speech Greta uses the phrase “How do you ‘solve’ […]” repeatedly to give
an idea of the uncertainty new situations hold: “How do you ‘solve’ the greatest crisis that
humanity has ever faced? How do you ‘solve’ a war? How do you ‘solve going to the moon for
the first time? How do you ‘solve’ inventing new inventions?” (Thunberg 2019, 65). These
verbalisations create an ongoing lexical cohesion which can be seen all through the speech.

Throughout this speech quite a number of presuppositions can be found. For example: Greta
has been “repeating these life-changing words over and over again”, ‘repeating’ as well as ‘over
and over again’ triggering that she has uttered those words before. In the first paragraph after
her introduction Greta says she and all the other children who are striking for our climate are
‘repeating the message of the united climate science’, indicating that there in fact has been
already a message of the united climate science. She also reassures her addressees that she and
all the children ‘will go back to school’, ‘go back’ triggering the presupposition that they at one
point already have been at school. When she speaks about how old her sister Beata will be in
the year 2030, she comes to the conclusion that this is the age in which the Members’ of
Parliament children are right now: “Just like many of your own children or grandchildren”,
presupposing that they do have children or grandchildren.

The last speech in her collection is packed with numerous rhetorical questions to create the
feeling of superiority: “Did you hear what I just said? Is my English okay? Is the microphone
on? Because I’m beginning to wonder” (Thunberg 2019, 61). Of course, everybody present
heard what she was saying and of course, her English is okay. Of course, the microphone was
on, the girl just wants her addressees to realise, that she repeated “these life-changing words
over and over again”, but change is yet to happen, people are yet to start listening to what she
says.

Greta Thunberg finishes her speech as follows: “I hope my microphone was on. I hope you
could all hear me.” These sentences convey a sarcastic feeling, since Greta can be sure that her
microphone was on and she could be heard. However, this is quite a powerful finishing
statement to quite a powerful speech altogether.

8. Conclusion

Climate change has been an issue basically since the beginning of time, whether that was the
Big Bang, or any other existential theory is anyone’s guess. However, climate change as we are

26
facing it right now is anthropogenic, and we humans are on the best way to destroy our planet
and our environment ourselves, by creating way too much carbon dioxide emissions, for
example through travelling by aeroplane or plastic pollution. Governmental policies have
shown little to no effect throughout the globe and the older generations hardly take the topic
seriously. That is why now it is high time to act and speak out against politicians and their
disinterest in preserving an environment for, the younger generation. School strikes and climate
change protests have been organised all over the world, inspiring millions of students to skip
school and marching the streets holding banners and placards saying powerful phrases such as:
“System Change not Climate Change.” This movement has started from one single person – the
piggy-tailed, 16-year-old Swedish Greta Thunberg. One day in August 2018, she decided to cut
class and instead sit in front of the Swedish parliament building with her iconic “skolstreijk för
klimatet” placard. She pledged to strike every Friday until the Swedish government have
reduced their country’s carbon dioxide emissions according to the Paris Climate Agreement.
As a result, the girl brought a worldwide movement into being – Fridays For Future. These
students’ protests count as the largest environmental movements in history.

However, politicians, school leaders and parents have brought about their concerns about
students missing classes, calling it “a waste of valuable lesson time.” Nevertheless, this has not
stopped the children from standing up for what they believe in. The Guardian, The Telegraph
as well as The Daily Mirror are only a few of the innumerable media channels which have
addressed the topic of Fridays For Future, Climate Change Movements and Greta Thunberg. In
terms of linguistics, articles from these newspapers share approximately the same amount of
semantic fields such as nature and environment, government and politics or places, to name a
few. In the media it is very important to play with words and their meanings to create a certain
amount of ambiguity and to involve the reader in the article. This ambiguity can be achieved
by the use of presuppositions, rhetorical figures such as metaphors or synecdoche, attributes or
collocations.

Greta Thunberg is one of the most influential and persuasive people of the last few years with
good reason. Her speeches, held in front of the world’s most powerful leaders, viewed billions
of times on the internet and thus reaching as many people as never before, are rhetorical
masterpieces, filled with presuppositions and references, rhetorical devices which help
conveying the Swedish teenager’s intentions, namely raising awareness and informing people
around the world about what is the biggest crisis humanity and our planet have ever faced:
climate change. In the last few years, the support of her actions has grown immensely, fellow

27
students around the globe as well as scientists at the most renowned universities and laboratories
have expressed their approval towards the now seventeen-year-old. However, with success and
fame also comes hatred and criticism, and Greta Thunberg has faced a great amount of that,
too. But that does not stop her from standing up for her beliefs, from standing up for her future
and from standing up to save our planet.

9. Bibliography

Attwood, Tony (2020). What is Asperger’s Syndrome? [Online].

http://www.tonyattwood.com.au/about-aspergers/what-is-aspergers [2020, Aug. 11].

Barclay, Eliza and Amaria, Kainaz (2019, March 17). “Photos: kids in 123 countries went on strike to
protect the climate”. Vox. [Online]
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/3/15/18267156/youth-climate-strike-
march-15-photos [2019, July 1].

Brinton, Laurel J. (2000). The structure of modern English: a linguistic introduction. Illustrated edition.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Carrington, Damian (2018, Dec. 4). “'Our leaders are like children,' school strike founder tells climate
summit”. The Guardian. [Online]
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/04/leaders-like-children-school-strike-
founder-greta-thunberg-tells-un-climate-summit [2019, May 21].

Dunlop, Ian and David Spratt (2019). Existential climate-related security risk: A scenario approach.
Foreword by Admiral Chris Barrie. Melbourne: Breakthrough.

Fairclough, Norman (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Longman.

Fairclough, Norman (2003). Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. Psychology
Press.

Fairclough, Norman, Jane Mulderrig and Ruth Wodak (2011). “Critical Discourse Analysis”. In: Teun
van Dijk, ed. Discourse studies: A multidisciplinary introduction – Volume One. London: Sage.
357-279.

Gerretsen, Isabelle (2019, May 24). “Global Climate Strike: Record number of students walk out”. CNN.
[Online]
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/24/world/global-climate-strike-school-students-protest-
climate-change-intl/index.html [2019, July 1].

Hauser, Uli and Saller, Josef (2019, Jan. 30). “Ragna, Linus, Ronja und Florian: Sie schwänzen den
Unterricht, um die Welt zu retten”. stern. [Online]
https://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/freitag-zur-demo--so-denken-die-jugendlichen-von--
fridays-for-future--8555674.html [2019, July 1].

28
Jakob, Tina (2019, June 29). “Maßnahme gegen Klimawandel. Immer mehr Städte rufen Klimanotstand
aus“. ZDF. [Online]
https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute/klimawandel-immer-mehr-staedte-rufen-klimanotstand-
aus-100.html [2019, July 1].

Janks, Hilary (1997). “Critical discourse analysis as a research tool”. Discourse: studies in the cultural
politics of education. 18: 329-342.

Lowe, Yohannes (2019, March 15). “Thousands of children descend on Westminster for second school
strike”. The Daily Telegraph. [Online].
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/15/thousands-children-descend-westminster-
second-school-strike/ [2019, May 21].

Milne, Oliver (2019, March 15). “Pupils across UK leave lessons to join climate change protests. Young
people from the South Pacific to Europe and the US have taken to the streets as part of a global
day of action.” The Daily Mirror. [Online]
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/pupils-across-uk-leave-lessons-14141916
[2019, May 21].

n.n. (2019, June 20). “Auch Aachen erklärt den Klimanotstand“. Welt. [Online]
https://www.welt.de/regionales/nrw/article195582741/Auch-Aachen-erklaert-den-
Klimanotstand.html [2019, July 1].

n.n. (2019, July 21). “Greta Thunberg mit ‘Prix Liberte‘ ausgezeichnet“. Die Presse [Online].
https://www.diepresse.com/5662900/greta-thunberg-mit-prix-liberte-ausgezeichnet
[2020, Aug. 11].

Richardson, John (2006). Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis.
London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Romm, Joseph (2016/2018). Climate Change: What everyone needs to know. New York: Oxford UP.

Rourke, Alison (2019, Sept. 2). “Greta Thunberg responds to Asperger's critics: 'It's a superpower'”. The
Guardian. [Online].
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/02/greta-thunberg-responds-to-
aspergers-critics-its-a-superpower [2020, Aug. 11].

Stibbe, Arran (2015). Ecolinguistics : Language, Ecology and the Stories We Live By. Taylor & Francis
Group, ProQuest Ebook. [Created from ubgraz-ebooks on 2020-07-22 06:52:27].

Thunberg, Greta (2019). No One Is Too Small to make a Difference. London: Penguin.

Watts, Joe (2019, Feb. 15). “Theresa May criticises schoolchildren protesting against looming climate
disaster for wasting lesson time”. The Independent. [Online]
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-climate-change-school-pupils-
protest-lesson-time-teachers-a8781046.html [2019, May 21].

Watts, Jonathan (2019, March 11). “Greta Thunberg, schoolgirl climate change warrior: ‘Some people
can let things go. I can’t’”. The Guardian. [Online]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/11/greta-thunberg-schoolgirl-climate-change-
warrior-some-people-can-let-things-go-i-cant [2019, May 21].

29
Wodak, Ruth (2009). “The discourse-historical approach”. In: Methods of critical discourse analysis. 1:
63-94. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Websites, Tweets and Videos

‘#AC2106.’[Online] https://ac2106.fridaysforfuture.de/ [2019, July 1].

‘Climate Strike.’[Online] https://www.climatestrike.net [2019, May 21].

Corbyn, Jeremy (2019, February 15) on Twitter about climate change and #SchoolStrike4Climate.
https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1096358314743685120 [2019, July 1].

‘Plant for the Planet.’[Online] https://www.plant-for-the-planet.org [2019, May 21].

TEDx Talks (2018, December 12). School strike for climate - save the world by changing the rules |
Greta Thunberg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAmmUIEsN9A&t=1m46s [2020, Aug. 10].

Guardian News (2019, September 23). Greta Thunberg to world leaders: 'How dare you? You have
stolen my dreams and my childhood'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMrtLsQbaok [2020, August 10].

10.Appendix

Watts, Jonathan (2019, March 11). “Greta Thunberg, schoolgirl climate change warrior: ‘Some people can let
things go. I can’t’”. The Guardian. [Online] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/11/greta-
thunberg-schoolgirl-climate-change-warrior-some-people-can-let-things-go-i-cant [2019, May 21].

One day last summer, aged 15, she skipped school, sat down outside the Swedish parliament –
and inadvertently kicked off a global movement

Greta Thunberg cut a frail and lonely figure when she started a school strike for the climate
outside the Swedish parliament building last August. Her parents tried to dissuade her.
Classmates declined to join. Passersby expressed pity and bemusement at the sight of the then
unknown 15-year-old sitting on the cobblestones with a hand-painted banner.

Eight months on, the picture could not be more different. The pigtailed teenager is feted across
the world as a model of determination, inspiration and positive action. National presidents and
corporate executives line up to be criticised by her, face to face. Her skolstrejk för
klimatet (school strike for climate) banner has been translated into dozens of languages. And,
most striking of all, the loner is now anything but alone.

On 15 March, when she returns to the cobblestones (as she has done almost every Friday in
rain, sun, ice and snow), it will be as a figurehead for a vast and growing movement. The global
climate strike this Friday is gearing up to be one of the biggest environmental protests the world
has ever seen. As it approaches, Thunberg is clearly excited.

“It’s amazing,” she says. “It’s more than 71 countries and more than 700 places, and counting.
It’s increasing very much now, and that’s very, very fun.”

30
A year ago, this was unimaginable. Back then, Thunberg was a painfully introverted, slightly
built nobody, waking at 6am to prepare for school and heading back home at 3pm. “Nothing
really was happening in my life,” she recalls. “I have always been that girl in the back who
doesn’t say anything. I thought I couldn’t make a difference because I was too small.”

She was never quite like the other kids. Her mother, Malena Ernman, is one of Sweden’s most
celebrated opera singers. Her father, Svante Thunberg, is an actor and author (named
after Svante Arrhenius, the Nobel prize-winning scientist who in 1896 first calculated how
carbon dioxide emissions could lead to the greenhouse effect). Greta was exceptionally bright.
Four years ago, she was diagnosed with Asperger’s.

“I overthink. Some people can just let things go, but I can’t, especially if there’s something that
worries me or makes me sad. I remember when I was younger, and in school, our teachers
showed us films of plastic in the ocean, starving polar bears and so on. I cried through all the
movies. My classmates were concerned when they watched the film, but when it stopped, they
started thinking about other things. I couldn’t do that. Those pictures were stuck in my head.”

She has come to accept this as part of who she is – and made it a motivating force instead of a
source of paralysing depression, which it once was.

At about the age of eight, when she first learned about climate change, she was shocked that
adults did not appear to be taking the issue seriously. It was not the only reason she became
depressed a few years later, but it was a significant factor.

“I kept thinking about it and I just wondered if I am going to have a future. And I kept that to
myself because I’m not very much of a talker, and that wasn’t healthy. I became very depressed
and stopped going to school. When I was home, my parents took care of me, and we started
talking because we had nothing else to do. And then I told them about my worries and concerns
about the climate crisis and the environment. And it felt good to just get that off my chest.

“They just told me everything will be all right. That didn’t help, of course, but it was good to
talk. And then I kept on going, talking about this all the time and showing my parents pictures,
graphs and films, articles and reports. And, after a while, they started listening to what I actually
said. That’s when I kind of realised I could make a difference. And how I got out of that
depression was that I thought: it is just a waste of time feeling this way because I can do so
much good with my life. I am trying to do that still now.”

Her parents were the guinea pigs. She discovered she had remarkable powers of persuasion,
and her mother gave up flying, which had a severe impact on her career. Her father became a
vegetarian. As well as feeling relieved by the transformation of their formerly quiet and morose
daughter, they say they were persuaded by her reasoning. “Over the years, I ran out of
arguments,” says her father. “She kept showing us documentaries, and we read books together.
Before that, I really didn’t have a clue. I thought we had the climate issue sorted,” he says. “She
changed us and now she is changing a great many other people. There was no hint of this in her
childhood. It’s unbelievable. If this can happen, anything can happen.”

The climate strike was inspired by students from the Parkland school in Florida, who walked
out of classes in protest against the US gun laws that enabled the massacre on their campus.
Greta was part of a group that wanted to do something similar to raise awareness about climate
change, but they couldn’t agree what. Last summer, after a record heatwave in northern Europe

31
and forest fires that ravaged swathes of Swedish land up to the Arctic, Thunberg decided to go
it alone. Day one was 20 August 2018.

“I painted the sign on a piece of wood and, for the flyers, wrote down some facts I thought
everyone should know. And then I took my bike to the parliament and just sat there,” she recalls.
“The first day, I sat alone from about 8.30am to 3pm – the regular schoolday. And then on the
second day, people started joining me. After that, there were people there all the time.”

She kept her promise to strike every day until the Swedish national elections. Afterwards, she
agreed to make a speech in front of thousands of people at a People’s Climate March rally. Her
parents were reluctant. Knowing Thunberg had been so reticent that she had previously been
diagnosed with selective mutism, they tried to talk her out of it. But the teenager was
determined. “In some cases where I am really passionate, I will not change my mind,” she says.
Despite her family’s concerns, she delivered the address in nearly flawless English, and invited
the crowd to film her on their mobile phones and spread the message through social media. “I
cried,” says her proud dad.

People with selective mutism have a tendency to worry more than others. Thunberg has since
weaponised this in meetings with political leaders, and with billionaire entrepreneurs in Davos.
“I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.
And then I want you to act,” she told them.

Such tongue-lashings have gone down well. Many politicians laud her candidness. In return,
she listens to their claims that stronger climate policies are unrealistic unless the public make
the issue more of a priority. She is unconvinced. “They are still not doing anything. So I don’t
know really why they are supporting us because we are criticising them. It’s kind of weird.”
She has also been withering about leaders in the US, UK and Australia who either ignore the
strikers or admonish them for skipping classes. “They are desperately trying to change the
subject whenever the school strikes come up. They know they can’t win this fight because they
haven’t done anything.”

Such blunt talk has found a broad audience among people jaded by empty promises and eager
to find a climate leader willing to ramp up ambition. Thunberg’s rise coincides with growing
scientific concern. A slew of recent reports has warned oceans are heating and the poles melting
faster than expected. Last year’s UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change spelled out
the dangers of surpassing 1.5C of global warming. To have any chance of avoiding that
outcome, it said, emissions must fall rapidly by 2030. That will require far more pressure on
politicians – and nobody has proved more effective at that over the past eight months than
Thunberg.

The girl who once slipped into despair is now a beacon of hope. One after another, veteran
campaigners and grizzled scientists have described her as the best news for the climate
movement in decades. She has been lauded at the UN, met the French president, Emmanuel
Macron, shared a podium with the European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and
has been endorsed by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

No, I am not more hopeful than when I started. The emissions are increasing

You may think this would put the weight of the world on the 16-year-old’s shoulders, but she
claims to feel no pressure. If “people are so desperate for hope”, she says, that is not her or the
other strikers’ responsibility.

32
“I don’t care if what I’m doing – what we’re doing – is hopeful. We need to do it anyway. Even
if there’s no hope left and everything is hopeless, we must do what we can.”

In this regard, her family see her Asperger’s as a blessing. She is someone who strips away
social distractions and focuses with black-and-white clarity on the issues. “It’s nothing that I
want to change about me,” she says. “It’s just who I am. If I had been just like everyone else
and been social, then I would have just tried to start an organisation. But I couldn’t do that. I’m
not very good with people, so I did something myself instead.”

While she has little time for chit-chat, she gets satisfaction from speaking to a big audience
about climate change. Regardless of the size of the crowd, she says she does not feel the least
bit nervous.

She seems incapable of the cognitive dissonance that allows other people to lament what is
happening to the climate one minute, then tuck into a steak, buy a car or fly off for a weekend
break the next. Although Thunberg believes political action far outweighs individual changes
to consumer habits, she lives her values. She is a vegan, and only travels abroad by train.

At its best, this sharpness can slice through the Gordian knot of the climate debate. It can also
sting. There are no comfortable reassurances in her speech, just a steady frankness. Asked
whether she has become more optimistic because the climate issue has risen up the political
agenda and politicians in the US and Europe are considering green New Deals that would ramp
up the transition to renewable energy, her reply is brutally honest. “No, I am not more hopeful
than when I started. The emissions are increasing and that is the only thing that matters. I think
that needs to be our focus. We cannot talk about anything else.”

Some people consider this a threat. A handful of fossil fuel lobbyists, politicians and journalists
have argued Thunberg is not what she seems; that she was propelled into prominence by
environmental groups and sustainable business interests. They say the entrepreneur who first
tweeted about the climate strike, Ingmar Rentzhog, used Thunberg’s name to raise investment
for his company, but her father says the connection was overblown. Greta, he says, initiated the
strike before anyone in the family had heard of Rentzhog. As soon as she found he had used
her name without her permission, she cut all links with the company, and has since vowed never
to be associated with commercial interests. Her family says she has never been paid for her
activities. In a recent interview, Rentzhog defended his actions, denied exploiting Greta and
said that climate change, not profit, was his motive.

On social media, there have been other crude attacks on Thunberg’s reputation and appearance.
Already familiar with bullying from school, she appears unfazed. “I expected when I started
that if this is going to become big, then there will be a lot of hate,” she says. “It’s a positive
sign. I think that must be because they see us as a threat. That means that something has changed
in the debate, and we are making a difference.”

She intends to strike outside parliament every Friday until the Swedish government’s policies
are in line with the Paris climate agreement. This has led to what she calls “strange contrasts”:
balancing her maths homework with her fight to save the planet; listening attentively to teachers
and decrying the immaturity of world leaders; weighing up the existential threat of climate
change alongside the agonising choice of what subjects to study in high school.

It can be gruelling. She still gets up at 6am to get ready for school. Interviews and writing
speeches can leave her working 12- to 15-hour days. “Of course, it takes a lot of energy. I don’t

33
have much spare time. But I just keep reminding myself why I am doing this, and then I just try
to do as much as I can.” So far, this does not appear to have affected her academic performance.
She keeps up with homework and is in the top five in her class, according to her father.

And now that she is active on climate, she is no longer lonely, no longer silent, no longer so
depressed. She is too busy trying to make a difference. And enjoying herself.

This Friday, when she takes her usual spot outside the Swedish parliament, she will be joined
by classmates and students from other schools. “It’s going to be very, very big internationally,
with hundreds of thousands of children going to strike from school to say that we aren’t going
to accept this any more,” she says. “I think we are only seeing the beginning. I think that change
is on the horizon and the people will stand up for their future.”

And then the activist slips back into being a teenager. “I’m looking forward to it and to see all
the pictures the day afterwards. It’s going to be fun.”

Lowe, Yohannes (2019, March 15). “Thousands of children descend on Westminster for second school strike”.
The Daily Telegraph. [Online]. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/15/thousands-children-
descend-westminster-second-school-strike/ [2019, May 21].

Thousands of school children descended on Westminster today for a second strike

demanding the government change its environmental policies.

More than 15,000 youngsters gathered outside the Houses of Parliament to call on politicians
to declare a “climate emergency” to deal with the “ecological crisis” threatening the planet.

They marched from Parliament square at midday to the gates of Downing Street, before
congregating around Buckingham Palace where they were met with a heavy police presence.

A few of the placards read: “By the time we're in charge it will be too late”, “we want you to
panic” and “the greatest threat to the planet is the belief someone else will save it”.

Some of the other students formed a sitting protest on Trafalgar Square and climbed onto
Nelson's Column.

The demonstrations caused traffic to be severely hampered along Westminster Bridge and
Parliament Square, as well as Waterloo Bridge Roundabout.

Youngsters have also today staged events in other British towns and cities
including Edinburgh, Canterbury, Oxford and Cambridge.

The Youth Strike 4 Climate in the UK follows action taken by 15,000 students last month,
which was criticised by Theresa May for wasting lesson time and increasing teacher’s
workloads.

But, Anna Taylor, 17, from north London, co-founder of the UK Student Climate Network and
one of the organisers of the Youth Strike 4 Climate movement, said the Government was failing
to recognise the severity of the crisis.

34
She said: “We're here because we feel betrayed and we don't feel we can trust them to protect
our future, which is why we're having to go on strike to make our voices heard, and let them
know that unless they change something we will keep striking until they consider our demands.”

The crowds were full of school children of all ages who missed lessons in order to show their
support for the campaign.

Sueleen Deelan, an 18-year-old studying her a-levels at Mill Hill County High School, arrived
at the demonstration late because she had an exam earlier in the morning.

She said: “We need to take priority in conserving our environment and that’s why all the young
children who are going to be the most affected by this are out today on a cold, windy Friday to
show that young people are paying attention to current affairs and we care about the future.

“I take Geography and Politics so my teachers were hugely supportive of my decision. I know
from an academic perspective that there is a big problem and my school was quite proud of me
for coming here because I was actively taking a role.”

The action is part of a much wider global movement- spanning from Germany to Australia-
known as Schools 4 Climate Action.

It began when 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, from Sweden, skipped class to sit outside
government buildings in September, accusing her country of not following the Paris Climate
Agreement.

However, school leaders have warned of the dangers of pupils missing valuable lesson time and
have voiced their opposition to the protests.

Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL),
said it would be reasonable to expect students to make up any missed work during lunchtime
detentions.

Mr Barton said: “The more we say climate change is such an important issue that young people
can go and protest about it, well the more you open up other issues.

“What about fracking, what about homelessness for example, what about knife crime? It seems
to me that we patronise children ultimately by saying 'yes, well done'. It is a sentimental
response.

“They should be learning in school about why climate change matters and learning how political
processes work.”

Some headteachers have also expressed their suspicions about the march being used as a cloak
by some students to play truant from their lessons.

But, the protesters hailed the day as a success and pledged to come back every month “until the
Government listens”.

Milne, Oliver (2019, March 15). “Pupils across UK leave lessons to join climate change protests. Young people
from the South Pacific to Europe and the US have taken to the streets as part of a global day of action.” The Daily
Mirror. [Online] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/pupils-across-uk-leave-lessons-14141916 [2019, May
21].

35
Thousands of students walked out of school and took to the streets across the UK as part of a
global school strike for action on climate change. Organisers claimed 50,000 people took part
in events in 150 British towns and cities including London, Brighton, Leeds, Manchester,
Cambridge and Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Students walked out of lessons to protest
in Ireland, including big crowds in central Dublin, and thousands joined marches in Sydney,
Paris, Warsaw, Berlin and Brussels, before strikes got under way in the US.

In the UK, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders
(ASCL), said it was up to school and college leaders to safeguard young people and missing
school to protest over climate change should not be condoned. Mr Barton labelled the protests
taking place in the UK as "fruitless" and said children should be learning in school about why
climate change matters and how political processes work. Speaking at ASCL's annual
conference in Birmingham, he said it would be reasonable to expect students to make up any
missed work during lunchtime detentions.

Education Secretary Damian Hinds said that while it was great that pupils were taking an
interest in an issue that was so important in the UK, and around the world, they "should be at
school". But politicians including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Environment Secretary
Michael Gove have spoken of their support for the young climate strikers - who are also backed
by scientists, academics and campaigners.

Young people gathered in Parliament Square, London, with placards that read "by the time
we're in charge it will be too late", "we want you to panic" and "the greatest threat to the planet
is the belief someone else will save it". They chanted "this is what democracy looks like" while
primary school children, who were at the protest with their parents and holding handmade
placards, shouted "climate change, boo!"

Joe Crabtree, 15, from south-west London, who is missing GCSE mocks for the protest, said:
"I'm here today to send a clear message to Government that I'm fed up with inaction on climate
change. "I think they're not doing enough to curb the problem that is climate change, leaving it
to the side like us with homework, hoping it will get done, but it's not being dealt with."

Anna Taylor, 17, from north London - co-founder of the UK Student Climate Network, said the
Government was failing to recognise the severity of the crisis. "They're failing to make
environmental reform and environmental policy a priority, they focusing on economic policy
and Brexit and failing to address the climate crisis facing us." She said young people felt
passionate about tackling climate change and were striking in solidarity with each other around
the world.

Scarlet Possnett, 15, described climate change as "the existential threat of my generation and I
know I have to do everything I can to address it". And she said: "I'd much rather be in school
today. I wish I didn't have to be here in London, but policy change is needed and it's needed
now."

In Glasgow, Marianne Mylchreest, 20, a Glasgow University student who joined the protest in
George Square, said: "We're out here saying that there's not enough being done so we're trying
to get people to actually make a difference. "It's incredible - schools are coming out, unis are
coming out, people that have kids are coming out, there's dogs here, it's just great."

36
Six-year-old Anna Arbuckle said she joined the George Square demonstrators "to stop the ice
from melting". Her older sister Lucy, aged 10, said: "The people in power aren't taking control
of the situation and we need to stop it from happening, otherwise our world will heat up and all
the ice will melt and there'll be no place for the polar bears and penguins."

The global day of action has been inspired by teenager Greta Thunberg, who protests every
Friday outside Sweden's parliament to urge leaders to tackle climate change.

The strikes come in the wake of a UN report last year which warned limiting global temperature
rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, beyond which climate impacts become increasingly
severe, requires unprecedented action. That includes cutting global carbon dioxide emissions
by almost half within 12 years, and to zero by mid-century.

Students in the UK are demanding the Government declare a climate emergency and take urgent
steps to tackle the problem.

Thunberg, Greta (2019). “Our House is On Fire”. In: No One Is Too Small to Make a
Difference. London: Penguin. 19-24.

Our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire.

According to the IPCC, we are less than 12 years away from not being able to undo our
mistakes. In that time, unprecedented changes in all aspects of society need to have taken place,
including a reduction of our CO2 emissions by at least 50%. And please note that those numbers
do not include the aspect of equity, which is absolutely necessary to make the Paris agreement
work on a global scale. Nor does it include tipping points or feedback loops like the extremely
powerful methane gas released from the thawing Arctic permafrost.

At places like Davos, people like to tell success stories. But their financial success has come
with an unthinkable price tag. And on climate change, we have to acknowledge we have failed.
All political movements in their present form have done so, and the media has failed to create
broad public awareness.
But Homo sapiens have not yet failed. Yes, we are failing, but there is still time to turn
everything around. We can still fix this. We still have everything in our own hands. But unless
we recognise the overall failures of our current systems, we most probably don’t stand a chance.

We are facing a disaster of unspoken sufferings for enormous amounts of people. And now is
not the time for speaking politely or focusing on what we can or cannot say. Now is the time to
speak clearly.
Solving the climate crisis is the greatest and most complex challenge that Homo sapiens have
ever faced. The main solution, however, is so simple that even a small child can understand it.
We have to stop our emissions of greenhouse gases.

Either we do that or we don’t. You say nothing in life is black or white. But that is a lie. A very
dangerous lie. Either we prevent 1.5C of warming or we don’t. Either we avoid setting off that
irreversible chain reaction beyond human control or we don’t.
Either we choose to go on as a civilisation or we don’t. That is as black or white as it gets. There
are no grey areas when it comes to survival.

37
We all have a choice. We can create transformational action that will safeguard the living
conditions for future generations. Or we can continue with our business as usual and fail.

That is up to you and me. Some say we should not engage in activism. Instead we should leave
everything to our politicians and just vote for a change instead. But what do we do when there
is no political will? What do we do when the politics needed are nowhere in sight?

Here in Davos – just like everywhere else – everyone is talking about money. It seems money
and growth are our only main concerns.
And since the climate crisis has never once been treated as a crisis, people are simply not aware
of the full consequences on our everyday life. People are not aware that there is such a thing as
a carbon budget, and just how incredibly small that remaining carbon budget is. That needs to
change today.

No other current challenge can match the importance of establishing a wide, public
awarenessand understanding of our rapidly disappearing carbon budget, that should and must
become our new global currency and the very heart of our future and present economics.
We are at a time in history where everyone with any insight of the climate crisis that threatens
ur civilisation – and the entire biosphere – must speak out in clear language, no matter how
uncomfortable and unprofitable that may be. We must change almost everything in our current
societies. The bigger your carbon footprint, the bigger your moral duty. The bigger your
platform, the bigger your responsibility.

Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” But I don’t want your
hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every
day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as
if our house is on fire. Because it is.

Thunberg, Greta (2019). “You’re Acting Like Spoiled, Irresponsible Children”. In: No One Is
Too Small to Make a Difference. London: Penguin. 34-40.

My name is Greta Thunberg, I am a climate activist from Sweden and today in this room there
are also - if you can come up - Anuna, Adélaïde, Kyra, Gilles, Dries, Toon and Luisa.

Tens of thousands of children or schools are striking for the climate on the streets of Brussels.
Hundreds of thousands are doing the same all over the world. We are school striking because
we have done our homework. And some of us are here today. People always tell us that they
are so hopeful. They are hopeful that the young people are going to save the world, but we are
not. There is simply not enough time to wait for us to grow up and become the ones in charge.
Because by the year 2020 we need to have bended the emissions curve steep downward.

That is next year. We know that most politicians don't want to talk to us. Good, we don't want
to talk to them either. We want them to talk to the scientists instead. Listen to them, because
we are just repeating what they are saying and have been saying for decades. We want you to
follow the Paris agreement and the IPCC reports. We don't have any other manifests or
demands, you unite behind the science that is our demand. When many politicians talk about
the school strike for the climate, they talk about almost anything except for the climate crisis.

Many people are trying to make the school strikes a question of whether we are promoting
truancy or whether we should go back to school or not. They make up all sorts of conspiracies

38
and call us puppets who cannot think for ourselves. They are desperately trying to remove the
focus from the climate crisis and change the subject. They don't want to talk about it because
they know they cannot win this fight. Because they know they haven't done their homework,
but we have. Once you have done your homework you realize that we need new politics, we
need new economics where everything is based on a rapidly declining and extremely limited
remaining carbon budget.

But that is not enough. We need a whole new way of thinking. The political system that you
have created is all about competition. You cheat when you can, because all that matters is to
win, to get power. That must come to an end, we must stop competing with each other, we
need to cooperate and work together and to share the resources of the planet in a fair way. We
need to start living within the planetary boundaries, focus on equity and take a few steps back
for the sake of all living species. We need to protect the biosphere, the air, the oceans, the
soil, the forests.

This may sound very naive, but if you have done your homework then you know that we don't
have any other choice. We need to focus every inch of our being on climate change, because
if we fail to do so than all our achievements and progress have been for nothing and all that
will remain of our political leaders’ legacy will be the greatest failure of human history. And
they will be remembered as the greatest villains of all time, because they have chosen not to
listen and not to act. But this does not have to be. There is still time. According to the IPCC
report we are about 11 years away from being in a position where we set off an irreversible
chain reaction beyond human control.

To avoid that unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, [actions] need to have taken
place within this coming decade, including a reduction of our CO2 emissions by at least 50
percent by the year 2030. And please note that those numbers do not include the aspect of
equity, which is absolutely necessary to make the Paris agreement work on a global scale, nor
do they include tipping points or feedback loops like the extremely powerful methane gas
released from the thawing Arctic permafrost. They do, however, include negative emission
techniques on a huge planetary scale that is yet to be invented, and that many scientists fear
will never be ready in time and will anyway be impossible to deliver at the scale assumed. We
have been told that the EU intends to improve its emission reduction targets. In the new
target, the EU is proposing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 45 percent below 1990’s
level by 2030. Some people say that is good or that is ambitious. But this new target is still
not enough to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

This target is not sufficient to protect the future for children growing up today. If the EU is to
make its fair contribution to staying within the carbon budget for the two-degree limit, then it
means a minimum of 80 percent reduction by 2030 and that includes aviation and shipping.
So [it is] around twice as ambitious as the current proposal. The actions required are beyond
manifestos or any party politics. Once again, they sweep their mess under the carpet for our
generation to clean up and solve. Some people say that we are fighting for our future, but that
is not true. We are not fighting for our future, we are fighting for everyone's future. And if
you think that we should be in school instead, then we suggest that you take our place in the
streets striking from your work. Or better yet, join us so it can speed up the process.

And I am sorry, but saying everything will be alright while continue doing nothing at all is
just not hopeful to us. In fact, it's the opposite of hope. And yet this is exactly what you keep
doing. You can't just sit around waiting for hope to come, you're acting like spoiled
irresponsible children. You don't seem to understand that hope is something you have to earn.

39
And if you still say that we are wasting valuable lesson time then let me remind you that our
political leaders have wasted decades through denial and inaction. And since our time is
running out we have decided to take action. We have started to clean up your mess and we
will not stop until we are done.

Thunberg, Greta (2019). “Can You Hear Me?” In: No One Is Too Small to Make a
Difference. London, Penguin. 57-68.

My name is Greta Thunberg. I am 16 years old. I come from Sweden. And I speak on behalf
of future generations.

I know many of you don’t want to listen to us – you say we are just children. But we’re only
repeating the message of the united climate science.

Many of you appear concerned that we are wasting valuable lesson time, but I assure you we
will go back to school the moment you start listening to science and give us a future. Is that
really too much to ask?

In the year 2030 I will be 26 years old. My little sister Beata will be 23. Just like many of
your own children or grandchildren. That is a great age, we have been told. When you have
all of your life ahead of you. But I am not so sure it will be that great for us.

I was fortunate to be born in a time and place where everyone told us to dream big; I could
become whatever I wanted to. I could live wherever I wanted to. People like me had
everything we needed and more. Things our grandparents could not even dream of. We had
everything we could ever wish for and yet now we may have nothing.

Now we probably don’t even have a future any more.

Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable
amounts of money. It was stolen from us every time you said that the sky was the limit, and
that you only live once.

You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look
forward to. And the saddest thing is that most children are not even aware of the fate that
awaits us. We will not understand it until it’s too late. And yet we are the lucky ones. Those
who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences. But their voices are
not heard.

Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?

Around the year 2030, 10 years 252 days and 10 hours away from now, we will be in a
position where we set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, that will most
likely lead to the end of our civilisation as we know it. That is unless in that time, permanent
and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society have taken place, including a reduction of
CO2 emissions by at least 50%.

40
And please note that these calculations are depending on inventions that have not yet been
invented at scale, inventions that are supposed to clear the atmosphere of astronomical
amounts of carbon dioxide.

Furthermore, these calculations do not include unforeseen tipping points and feedback loops
like the extremely powerful methane gas escaping from rapidly thawing arctic permafrost.

Nor do these scientific calculations include already locked-in warming hidden by toxic air
pollution. Nor the aspect of equity – or climate justice – clearly stated throughout the Paris
agreement, which is absolutely necessary to make it work on a global scale.

We must also bear in mind that these are just calculations. Estimations. That means that these
“points of no return” may occur a bit sooner or later than 2030. No one can know for sure. We
can, however, be certain that they will occur approximately in these timeframes, because
these calculations are not opinions or wild guesses.

These projections are backed up by scientific facts, concluded by all nations through the
IPCC. Nearly every single major national scientific body around the world unreservedly
supports the work and findings of the IPCC.

Did you hear what I just said? Is my English OK? Is the microphone on? Because I’m
beginning to wonder.

During the last six months I have travelled around Europe for hundreds of hours in trains,
electric cars and buses, repeating these life-changing words over and over again. But no one
seems to be talking about it, and nothing has changed. In fact, the emissions are still rising.

When I have been travelling around to speak in different countries, I am always offered help
to write about the specific climate policies in specific countries. But that is not really
necessary. Because the basic problem is the same everywhere. And the basic problem is that
basically nothing is being done to halt – or even slow – climate and ecological breakdown,
despite all the beautiful words and promises.

The UK is, however, very special. Not only for its mind-blowing historical carbon debt, but
also for its current, very creative, carbon accounting.

Since 1990 the UK has achieved a 37% reduction of its territorial CO2 emissions, according
to the Global Carbon Project. And that does sound very impressive. But these numbers do not
include emissions from aviation, shipping and those associated with imports and exports. If
these numbers are included the reduction is around 10% since 1990 – or an an average of
0.4% a year, according to Tyndall Manchester.

And the main reason for this reduction is not a consequence of climate policies, but rather a
2001 EU directive on air quality that essentially forced the UK to close down its very old and
extremely dirty coal power plants and replace them with less dirty gas power stations. And
switching from one disastrous energy source to a slightly less disastrous one will of course
result in a lowering of emissions.

But perhaps the most dangerous misconception about the climate crisis is that we have to
“lower” our emissions. Because that is far from enough. Our emissions have to stop if we are
to stay below 1.5-2C of warming. The “lowering of emissions” is of course necessary but it is

41
only the beginning of a fast process that must lead to a stop within a couple of decades, or
less. And by “stop” I mean net zero – and then quickly on to negative figures. That rules out
most of today’s politics.

The fact that we are speaking of “lowering” instead of “stopping” emissions is perhaps the
greatest force behind the continuing business as usual. The UK’s active current support of
new exploitation of fossil fuels – for example, the UK shale gas fracking industry, the
expansion of its North Sea oil and gas fields, the expansion of airports as well as the planning
permission for a brand new coal mine – is beyond absurd.

This ongoing irresponsible behaviour will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the
greatest failures of humankind.

People always tell me and the other millions of school strikers that we should be proud of
ourselves for what we have accomplished. But the only thing that we need to look at is the
emission curve. And I’m sorry, but it’s still rising. That curve is the only thing we should look
at.

Every time we make a decision we should ask ourselves; how will this decision affect that
curve? We should no longer measure our wealth and success in the graph that shows
economic growth, but in the curve that shows the emissions of greenhouse gases. We should
no longer only ask: “Have we got enough money to go through with this?” but also: “Have we
got enough of the carbon budget to spare to go through with this?” That should and must
become the centre of our new currency.

Many people say that we don’t have any solutions to the climate crisis. And they are right.
Because how could we? How do you “solve” the greatest crisis that humanity has ever faced?
How do you “solve” a war? How do you “solve” going to the moon for the first time? How do
you “solve” inventing new inventions?

The climate crisis is both the easiest and the hardest issue we have ever faced. The easiest
because we know what we must do. We must stop the emissions of greenhouse gases. The
hardest because our current economics are still totally dependent on burning fossil fuels, and
thereby destroying ecosystems in order to create everlasting economic growth.

“So, exactly how do we solve that?” you ask us – the schoolchildren striking for the climate.

And we say: “No one knows for sure. But we have to stop burning fossil fuels and restore
nature and many other things that we may not have quite figured out yet.”

Then you say: “That’s not an answer!”

So we say: “We have to start treating the crisis like a crisis – and act even if we don’t have all
the solutions.”

“That’s still not an answer,” you say.

Then we start talking about circular economy and rewilding nature and the need for a just
transition. Then you don’t understand what we are talking about.

42
We say that all those solutions needed are not known to anyone and therefore we must unite
behind the science and find them together along the way. But you do not listen to that.
Because those answers are for solving a crisis that most of you don’t even fully understand.
Or don’t want to understand.

You don’t listen to the science because you are only interested in solutions that will enable
you to carry on like before. Like now. And those answers don’t exist any more. Because you
did not act in time.

Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation
while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling.

Sometimes we just simply have to find a way. The moment we decide to fulfil something, we
can do anything. And I’m sure that the moment we start behaving as if we were in an
emergency, we can avoid climate and ecological catastrophe. Humans are very adaptable: we
can still fix this. But the opportunity to do so will not last for long. We must start today. We
have no more excuses.

We children are not sacrificing our education and our childhood for you to tell us what you
consider is politically possible in the society that you have created. We have not taken to the
streets for you to take selfies with us, and tell us that you really admire what we do.

We children are doing this to wake the adults up. We children are doing this for you to put
your differences aside and start acting as you would in a crisis. We children are doing this
because we want our hopes and dreams back.

I hope my microphone was on. I hope you could all hear me.

43