Question

Read the excerpt from Greta Thunberg’s speech at the United Nations Climate Action Summit.

So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us—we who have to live with the consequences.

To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise—the best odds given by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]—the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on January 1, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons.

How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just "business as usual” and some technical solutions? With today’s emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8 1/2 years.

How does Thunberg use reasoning in this excerpt?

She moves from a general premise about climate risks to a generalization about solutions.
She moves from a general premise about CO2 usage to a specific prediction about emissions.
She moves from a specific observation about the climate to a general conclusion about CO2.
She moves from a specific pattern in global temperature rise to a generalization about emissions.

Answer 1

Greta Thunberg uses reasoning in her speech by starting with a general statement on climate risk and moving to a specific and data-backed prediction on the depletion of our carbon budget, urging immediate and significant action.

Step-by-step explanation:

In Greta Thunberg's United Nations speech excerpt, she employs deductive reasoning by presenting a series of facts and arguments which lead to a specific conclusion about the future of CO2 emissions. Starting with a general premise about the unacceptable risk of a 50% probability of surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius in global temperature rise, she cites the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) data to make a specific prediction that at the current rate of emissions, our carbon budget would be depleted in less than 8.5 years. This fact-based approach combined with her rigorous logic demonstrates her move from a general premise about CO2 usage to a specific prediction about emissions.

Thunberg's use of reasoning helps convey the urgency of the situation and the inadequacy of 'business as usual' approaches to addressing climate change. She emphasizes that technical solutions alone will not suffice to solve the problem and that a more dramatic and immediate response is needed to avoid catastrophic climate outcomes.