Greta Thunberg vows that if U.N. doesn’t tackle climate change ‘we will never forgive you’
Epstein, Kayla. Elperin, Julia. “Greta Thunberg Tells U.N. Climate Summit to Take Action on Climate Change.” The Washington Post, The Washington Post, 23 Sept. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/09/23/greta-thunberg-vows-that-if-un-doesnt-tackle-climate-change-we-will-never-forgive-you/.
This article talks about a relatively new face on the scene of climate change protests. Greta Thunberg is a Swedish teen advocate for environmental issues, who has already lead school-strikes across
Sweden on the subject, and is now reprimanding the UN.
The Washington Post is a left-leaning newspaper, often guilty of using emotional language and selection of detail which adds slant. We see that same tendency in this article. The two authors, both women of a left-leaning, also show their slightly amero-centric bias in this with pointed selection of detail. They talk about Ms Thunberg in an admiring way, adding details such as "who travelled for two weeks on a solar-powered sailboat to reach the United States this month", "Thunberg has quickly become the face of a global movement of young people demanding that their elders safeguard their planet’s future.", and " Thunberg chastised leaders." The language and detail choice paint Thunberg as a young hero, implying that because she is young, the power she weilds over these powerful world politicians is more impressive. That's true. They even use this to attack Donald Trump, an easy target for every leftist environmentalist.
Personally, I agree with the authors. I think that negative climate change has been empirically proven and to deny that is bordering on a crime. I believe that Greta Thunberg is a positive sign of change. This is probably due to my background, coming from a very pro-science, progressive family in the UK. I think, however, the authors choose their details in a way that was biased, omitting claims by French philosopher Raphaël Enthoven that people use Greta to "buy virtue"*, supporting her, but not doing anything to change, omitting the claims that there is a cult of personality forming that follows Thunberg, not climate change**, and omitting the claims that she is being manipulated by her parents for the sake of gaining fame***. While I agree with the authors, I think they are playing a dangerous game by putting such a one-sided message on somewhere people will come to find information, especially more liberal people, who are already predisposed to believe the negative effects of global warming.
Some have criticised Thunberg as being a wannabe messiah. This article, however factually correct it may be, has the dangerous possible effect of feeding into this.
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