Edexcel English IGCSE: Climate Change Webpage

On the Climate Change Webpage, the author uses a variety of techniques to persuade the reader to take action, to help reduce the impact of climate change.

The layout of the article draws the reader’s attention to the main article, and also to their potential role in helping assuage the effects of climate change. The main article is in the centre of the page, which draws the reader’s eye and encourages them to read it. The subtitle, “What you can do” is in bold; this highlights immediately to the reader, even if they are simply skim-reading, that they have a role in protecting the world against climate change. The picture of the melting ice cap appeals to the reader’s sympathy; it is beautiful, but appears small and isolated, since it is melting away. The prominent links at the bottom of the page, particularly the “Take Action” link, encourage the reader to click on them. The “Take Action” link is in capital letters, which immediately draws the reader’s eye. The word “action” is repeated throughout the article, and thus the use of the word on this link makes the reader keen to act accordingly.

The writer creates a sense of communal and individual responsibility through the way in which the reader is addressed. The second person plural pronoun is used throughout the article, which creates a sense of solidarity between the charity, Greenpeace, and the reader, as though they are on the same team. Furthermore, the use of “we” evokes the sense of a global community, particularly in the phrase “We’re the last generation that can stop this global catastrophe”. This makes the reader feel part of a group of people who are unique in their ability to save the world; the word “last” evokes urgency and creates a sense of responsibility for future generations. Once this sense of teamwork has been developed, the writer introduces direct address to the reader : “we need your help”. This is a direct plea to the reader, encouraging them even more strongly to join the community fighting against climate change.

The writer uses a variety of language techniques to persuade the reader to take action. Perhaps the most striking is the combination of alliteration and emotive language in the phrases “catastrophic climate change” and “climate chaos”. The words “catastrophe” and “chaos” are very dramatic, as they are only used to describe the worst possible circumstances. This highlights the importance of action. The alliteration also contributes to this sense of drama, and creates a prominent phrase which will stick in the reader’s mind.

On this webpage, the writer plays on the emotions of the reader – sorrow, shock and guilt – to induce a sense of responsibility for climate change, and thus to encourage them to take action to stop it.

Edexcel English IGCSE: Climate Change Webpage

The writer’s attribution of responsibility for climate change in this article is quite complex. The government is most strongly implicated, but the article also creates a strong sense of responsibility within the reader.

The government are portrayed as having great responsibility for assuaging the effects of climate change, but as incompetent in doing so. There is a lot of negative vocabulary used to describe the government: they will “miss” their targets and are “failing” to do as they promised. They are accused of “political cowardice”, which is very emotive vocabulary, suggesting that they are corrupt, selfish and uncaring. This negative paragraph follows a much more optimistic paragraph, in which the writer describes how easy it would be to implement environmentally-friendly technologies. The fact that the government are still failing to take “real action” make them seem all the more neglectful of their responsibilities.

Because of the negligence of the government, the article suggests that the responsibility now falls on ‘ordinary people’: that is, the reader. To persuade the reader of this, the writer uses language techniques to make the reader feel part of a global community. The use of the second person plural pronoun throughout the article creates a sense of solidarity amongst humanity. By portraying climate change as a global issue – “this global catastrophe” – the writer assigns the responsibility to all humans together, including the reader. This sense of community is heightened by the phrase, “We’re the last generation”; this unites the current population of the earth as uniquely able to take action, and highlights the sense of urgency in doing so. Solidarity and responsibility are the key messages in the final sentence of the article; there is a strong sense of optimism in the words, “Together, we can”, which shows that the issue can be resolved if people join forces to take responsibility.

As well as creating the impression of a global community with joint responsibility, the writer highlights the reader’s individual role in reducing the impact of climate change. Occasionally, the writer directly addresses the reader, which draws them into the dialogue and reminds them of their personal responsibility. The phrase “we need your help” is repeated towards the end of the article, which is a direct plea for the reader to take responsibility. Thus, whilst the global community is communally responsible, the individual has an important role to play in ensuring that action is taken. This is connected with other links on the webpage, which use imperatives to directly instruct the reader to take action: “Donate now”, “Add your voice”, “Take Action”.

In this article, the government are presented as a crucial force in reducing the impact of climate change. However, since they are being neglectful, it is the responsibility of the global community – of which the reader is a part – to encourage them to face up to their responsibility and take action.

Edexcel English IGCSE: Climate Change Webpage

In my view, the main purpose of the Climate Change Webpage is to remind people of the dangers of climate change, and to persuade them to take action to reduce its global impact.

The writer of the webpage highlights the dangers of climate change, and thus the urgency of action to reduce the impact. Firstly, the picture of an ice cap is in a prominent position on the page, which draws the reader’s eye. The ice cap looks small and isolated, which reminds the reader of one of the key problems related to climate change: the melting of the ice caps. This fact is relatively well-known, and therefore the picture is all that is needed to remind the reader of this information. The first paragraph contains statistical information about the potentially devastating impact of climate change. The numbers are combined with emotive language, such as “dying” and “extinction”. This powerful combination ensures that the reader is aware of the scale of the problem.

As well as informing about the issue of climate change, the article aims to encourage the reader to take action to help reduce the potential impacts. One technique used by the writer is to emphasise the negligence of the government in implementing technologies which would help to ease the effects of climate change. These technologies are described colloquially as “ready-to-go”, which makes them sound extremely easy to introduce. This ease heightens the laziness and corruption of the government, who are emotively accused of “cowardice”. By emphasising the failure of the government, the writer intends to induce anger in the reader, and thus make them feel that they want to take action themselves.

Another technique used by the writer to encourage the reader to take action is to create a sense of communal responsibility. The use of the second personal plural pronoun throughout the passage unites the reader and the writer (as a representative of the charity, Greenpeace), making them feel that they are on the same team. On a larger scale, the writer evokes the global community: “We’re the last generation that can stop this global catastrophe”. This makes the reader feel important, and that they are part of something special. It also evokes guilt, since the reader feels that they are responsible for the fate of future generations. The evocation of time pressure (“last generation”) is another technique used by the writer. Repeated time adverbs such as “urgently” and “immediately” create a sense of urgency, encouraging the reader to take action fast.

The article does not outline exactly what the reader must do to encourage the government to take action; presumably they will be asked to sign a petition. The priority of the article is to make the reader care enough to click the link labelled “Take Action” at the bottom of the page.

Edexcel English IGCSE: Climate Change Webpage

The purpose of the Climate Change Webpage is to persuade the reader to assist Greenpeace in encouraging the government to take action on climate change. The writer uses a number of presentational and language features to achieve this.

The layout of the article places an emphasis on the reader’s responsibility for action. As the reader skim-reads the webpage, the second person address in the main article’s subtitle captures their attention: “What you can do”. This quickly gives the impression that the reader can do something about the issue of climate change. A number of links around the page also persuade the reader to do certain things. The tone of the article itself constitutes pleading, for example with appeals to the reader for help. However, the links around the webpage take a more direct approach, by using imperatives to directly ‘instruct’ the reader to click the links to take action on a variety of issues: “Donate now”, “Add your voice”, “Stop Heathrow Expansion” and “Take Action”.

The information provided in the article also persuades the reader to take action. The first paragraph provides a number of shocking statistics about the current situation and about predictions for the future. The use of statistics provides authority to the writer’s message, and implies that it has scientific support. These statistics capture the reader’s interest, which is piqued when the writer reveals that it is possible to avoid these catastrophic effects. The article outlines the technology which could improve the situation, before moving onto a focus on “action”. The government is blamed for failing to take climate change seriously, with the use of emotive language such as “political cowardice”. This is designed to anger the reader, and thus encourage them to take action themselves.

A number of language techniques are also engaged to encourage the reader to take action. Temporal adverbs are used to show that the situation is an emergency: the government needs to act “urgently” and “immediately”, for example. By suggesting that action must be taken straight away, the reader feels a sense of urgency to do something about the problem. Emotive language is also used to show just how terrible the effects of climate change could be. The evocation of “dying” and “extinction” in the first paragraph shows that this is an issue of life and death. Variants of the word “catastrophe” are repeated throughout the article. This is an extremely emotive word, which is used only for the most terrible scenarios. Such drastic language encourages the reader to take action to avoid such an outcome.

Through a variety of techniques, the writer encourages the reader to want to do something to stop the potentially devastating effects of climate change. The links surrounding the main article offer tempting means by which to do this.