UK Students Urge Government to Panic about Climate Change by Going on Strike

In his Guardian article, “UK Pupils to Join Global Strike Over Climate Change Crisis,” Matthew Taylor writes about both the past and future of the burgeoning student-led environmental movement sweeping through Europe, focusing mainly on the UK.

Taylor utilizes quotes from various parties with stakes in this movement to provide insight into why it is both popular and necessary. He includes quotes from the founder of the movement, a member of the UK Youth Climate Coalition, a young British environmental activist, and the mother of the latter. I think that the inclusion of these quotes was both necessary and helpful as it gave the reader insight into the background of the movement and why students are so passionate about it.

That being said, I believe Taylor could have included the perspective of a teacher at a school with students involved in the strikes. The passion conveyed through the words of the students is eye-opening, however, no opposition is presented in the article—certainly not everyone supports the strikes and it would have been helpful, at least contextually for those unfamiliar with the issue, to see this side as well. Thus, the article appears to have a slight liberal bias as it pushes for the support of the students. This bias is displayed again at the very end of the article, with the concluding sentence being a powerful quote from the initiator of the movement, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg. “I want you to panic,” seems to be both a message from Thunberg to world leaders but also from Taylor to the readers.

A point of contention arose in class when discussing Taylor’s mention of the recent IPCC report. Hayden found that it skewed the piece in a slightly apocalyptic direction, due to the nature of the report and its main point that we have 12 good years left to avoid complete environmental catastrophe. Micali, on the other hand, felt that, as it was a factual report, it was unbiased to include it and merely added some background and reason for the students’ passion and action for the issue of climate change. While I agree with Micali that it, alone, did not skew the story in any particular direction, I understand Hayden’s point and see how, coupled with the lack of different perspectives and voices, others might feel the same.

Overall, I enjoyed the article and believe it did a good job at summarizing the issue at hand and addressing the importance of it. The piece would have undoubtedly been stronger should it have addressed opposing voices but was still extremely informative.

Link to article

About fedepina

I am a third year student at New York University, studying Environmental Studies with a minor in Politics. A Social Democrat, I support the abandonment of career politicians and establishment politics in favor of socially progressive reform proposed by increasingly popular politicians such as Senator Sanders and Representative Ocasio-Cortez. Although deeply engaged in American politics, I spent the first ten years of my life in Italy before moving to Los Angeles with my parents and younger sister, a current high school senior. While a senior myself, I watched documentaries about the environment and animal agriculture and became a vegan for ethical reasons. I major in Environmental Studies because I became passionate about spreading the information I learned from these documentaries in the hopes that everybody might know the extent of the damage humankind is doing to the Earth. When I began my studies, I wanted to write environmental policy; I now envision using journalistic publications to further the spread of knowledge about the detrimental habits of the Earth’s residents. My previous experience with travel, extroverted nature, and passion for my studies will no doubt be of great comfort to me as I continue my studies here at NYU Sydney.

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