Year 9 Shared DEAR

Spring HT2: Greta Thunberg meets Malala Yousafzai, Article from The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post is an American news and opinion website and blog. It also has a UK version, that you can read here: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/

Year 9 Stretch Tasks

These stretch tasks are optional. If you enjoyed this half-term’s reading, why not have a go at stretching yourself with one of the tasks below?You can complete as many as you like from the menu, and could even make up your own task if you’d prefer.When you have completed the task/s, please take them to Mr Avery in History

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Read the article and more like it here:

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/greta-thunberg-malala-yousafzai-picture_n_5e55973dc5b649ec432ef383?ri18n=true&guccounter=1

Remember that when reading news stories, you should be aware of fake news. Don’t take everything you read at face value; find multiple valid sources to read from. Social media is not always the best place to get your news from.

Greta Thunberg Finally Met Role Model Malala Yousafzai, And They Took The Sweetest Pic

The two young activists had a chance to meet in person while Thunberg was visiting the United Kingdom for a protest. By Elyse Wanshel, HuffPost US

Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai finally got a chance to meet face to face — and, unsurprisingly, it seems like the two really hit it off.The 17-year-old Swedish climate change activist, who is in the United Kingdom for a school protest later this week, visited the 22-year-old Pakistani human rights advocate at the University of Oxford, where Yousafzai is currently a student.

During their visit on Tuesday, the duo decided to snap a photo together and posted it on their respective social media accounts.They also expressed a lot of mutual admiration for one another in the captions of their posts.“So... today I met my role model. What else can I say?” wrote the 17-year-old climate change activist.

So... today I met my role model. What else can I say? — Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) February 25, 2020“She’s the only friend I’d skip school for,” Yousafzai cheekily wrote.She’s the only friend I’d skip school for. — Malala (@Malala) February 25, 2020

It’s not surprising that the two young women got along, considering they both became prominent activists in their youth.Both have spoken at the United Nations and have been nominated for Nobel Peace Prizes. Yousafzai became the youngest recipient of the award in 2014 at age 17 for her work advocating for girls’ education, while Thunberg is currently nominated for her environmental advocacy.

Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg, born 3 January 2003, is a Swedish environmental activist on climate change whose campaigning has gained international recognition.

Malala Yousafzai, born 12 July 1997, also known mononymously* as Malala, is a Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate.

A mononymous person is an individual who is known and addressed by a single name. Can you think of any other mononymous people?

And while Thunberg called Yousafzai her role model on Twitter, Yousafzai has also publicly praised Thunberg’s work.“You don’t have to grow older to change the world, you can change the world right now,” Yousafzai said in December on “A Little Late with Lilly Singh.” “I think that’s the message that Greta is giving to young people around the world, that your voice, your activism, is so, so crucial for the change you want to see for your future.”

We can only imagine what the pair are plotting now – better education on the environment, perhaps? A round-the-world boat trip for girls’ educational rights?Either way, it’s made us reminisce about the moment you meet a mentor a few years ahead of you at work – and how great it is when they share their wisdom. Plus, if these two women are changing the world before they even hit 25, what excuse is there for the rest of us to sit back and do nothing?

Read the rest at home.

Greta Thunberg joined thousands of school children on the Bristol Youth Strike 4 Climate on Friday 28th February – ending a busy week in the UK, which included a meeting with Malala Yousafzai at Oxford University. 30,000 pupils and members of the public joined the 17-year-old environmental activist on the march, with 16,000 turning out in Bristol for a strike in September.The campaigner’s powerful words on the topic of climate change have no doubt inspired many to get involved.IN the wake of the strike, here are six of her most inspiring quotes.

1. “You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal.” Thunberg delivered a powerful rebuke to world leaders at the United Nations Climate Action Summit last September, telling them they had “stolen” her childhood with their “empty words”. She added: “The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say, we will never forgive you.”2. “The climate movement does not need any more awards. What we need is for our politicians and the people in power to listen to the current, best available science.”At just 16 years old, Thunberg was named the winner of the Nordic Council’s Environment Award. But she turned it down to keep public focus on the big issues, rather than her as an individual. 3. “Our house is still on fire.”The short phrase stood out during during Thunberg’s 2019 speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos because it echoed the speech she’d made one year earlier – signalling our lack of progress. She also told the audience: “Planting trees is good, of course, but it’s nowhere near enough,” which some interpreted as a thinly-veiled rebuke to a pledge made in Davos by US president Donald Trump.4. “Please save your praise. We don’t want it. Don’t invite us here to just tell us how inspiring we are without actually doing anything about it because it doesn’t lead to anything.”The teen didn’t hold back when she addressed a task force of US Senate Democrats in September 2019. She added: “I know you are trying, but just not hard enough. Sorry.”

5. “There are no grey areas when it comes to survival.”In No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference, a collection of speeches and essays by Thunberg, she said the solution to climate change is so simple, “even a small child can understand it”. “We have to stop our emissions of greenhouse gases,” she added. “And either we do that or we don’t. You say that nothing in life is black or white. But that is a lie. A very dangerous lie.”6. “Being different is a gift.” Speaking to Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in April 2019, Thunberg said Asperger’s syndrome has enabled her activism. “It makes me different, and being different is a gift, I would say,” she said. “It also makes me see things from outside the box. I don’t easily fall for lies, I can see through things.“If I had been like everyone else, I wouldn’t have started the school strike. I don’t think I would be interested in the climate at all.”

Now answer these 5 questions to show you have read the extract:

1) Who is Greta Thunberg?

2) Who did Greta Thunberg meet on her visit to the UK and where did they meet up?

3) What do the two girls have in common? Why do you think they are both so popular with young people today?

4) How many people turned up to the climate strike in Bristol in February? What do you think this can tell us?

5) Look at quote number 6. What is it that makes Greta different, and why do you think this is inspirational to other young people?

Want to read more on green living? Turn the page for a new article:

How Instagram Culture Is Contributing To The Climate Crisis

Social media feeds our appetite for fashion, but the result is a recipe for environmental disaster.By Sara Li.What Will Be Lost is a series of reported stories and essays exploring the ways climate change is affecting our relationship to one another, to our sense of place, and to ourselves.

n 2018, popular beauty vlogger Samantha Ravndahl announced to her legion of subscribers that she would no longer accept boxes of promotional samples because she was concerned about the waste in beauty packaging. “I was feeling like this walking billboard because all I was doing was constantly pumping out videos of new products,” Ravndahl said. It wasn’t just her own waste she was trying to combat. It was the glamorisation that “new” means better ― a trend that social media has certainly amplified in recent years. It happens with clothes, too. One of the biggest “rules” in fashion is not duplicating an outfit. It’s so deeply embedded in our culture’s subconscious that people can still vividly recall a scene from ’00s Disney show “Lizzie McGuire” in which mean girl Kate Sanders accuses Lizzie of being an outfit repeater. Fast forward almost two decades and the insult still carries weight.Now social media gives users unlimited potential to broadcast their lives — and increasing pressure to dress for it as well. Forty-one percent of 19- to 25-year-olds said they won’t rewear an outfit to go out in a survey from the environmental charity Hubbub. For 17%, rewearing it all was a nonstarter if they’d posted a picture of themselves in it on Instagram.

1) Who is Greta Thunberg?

2) Who did Greta Thunberg meet on her visit to the UK and where did they meet up?

3) What do the two girls have in common? Why do you think they are both so popular with young people today?

4) How many people turned up to the climate strike in Bristol in February? What do you think this can tell us?

5) Look at quote number 6. What is it that makes Greta different, and why do you think this is inspirational to other young people?

The consequences of an entire generation rapidly cycling through products and clothes — the majority of them completely non-degradable — is apocalyptic. As it stands, the fashion industry is responsible for 8% of all global carbon emissions in the world.Consumers play a major role — consumers who are deeply influenced by social media and who copycat the behaviour of others. But in these times of impending environmental doom, it’s worth reexamining the patterns that make them complicit in the climate crisis, starting with their relationship with social media. What’s Old Is … OldBefore social media, there were magazines, of course: glossy pages upon pages that dictated what was in and out. Popular publications like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar served as instructional manuals for what to wear or not wear at a given moment, perpetuating the idea that fashion had an expiration date.Fashion is intrinsically tied to identity and politics, but the bottom line is that fashion exists to sell itself. “Fashion is not a practical business and if it was, no one would buy anything,” said Tyler McCall, editor-in-chief of the site Fashionista. “For example: You may already have a handbag, but here’s why you should get this specific handbag, and it goes on and on.”Adam Minter, author of “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale,” noted that the culture around consumption has drastically increased in recent years. Between 2003 and 2017, the amount of apparel sold globally doubled, but the amount of times a single piece of garment is worn dropped by a third. The fast nature of trends only escalated this concern, and social media then amplified it.“When someone buys a piece of clothing for Instagram, the resale value decreases,” said Minter. “Even if they return it, it’s not going to end up back on the rack because it’s already starting to wear out or go out of style. What’s popular now on Instagram won’t be popular in a few months and all of that contributes to textile waste.”The conversation about whether fashion can be sustainable at all is a complicated one. While more fashion brands are jumping aboard the sustainability train by trying to improve their sourcing and processes, there are just as many that greenwash, or mislead buyers about how environmentally friendly their products really are. Therein lies the trap of “shopping sustainability.” In addition to the higher cost that sustainably made items bring, producing more clothing with better practices cannot address the heaps of unworn, discarded clothes already made ― not to mention the brands that burn millions of dollars’ worth of unsold stock each year or send returned items straight to the dump. Even if you send your old clothes to thrift stores or charity, 80 to 90% of it still ends up at the landfill. “Our sustainability writer, Whitney [Bauck], likes to say, ‘You can’t shop your way out of the sustainability problem,’” said McCall.The Influence Economy The vlogger Ravndahl, with 982,000 subscribers on YouTube and 2.1 million followers on Instagram, has considerably more reach than the average human. But when four in five consumers say they have made a purchase because an influencer shared it,

influencers also have a responsibility. For Ravndahl, it means setting an example of doing what is doable to move forward. “If we are able to slowly push into the direction of less waste, that’s the best thing we can do than sit around and feel helpless,” said Ravndahl. “It’s no excuse to continue wasting unreasonably if you don’t need to.”Sam Fazz, a fashion influencer who sports the casual chic aesthetic dominating Instagram these days, says that actively recognising the urge to shop unnecessarily is key to stopping wasteful behaviour. And she thinks her content is better for it. “It’s so easy to get caught up in what’s cool and want a new outfit every day to show off,” she said. “Something that I realised with my own content is that it’s not about what you’re wearing; it’s about who you are and the way you put things together. It doesn’t have to be trendy or new; it’s about having something real to say.”Even Fazz isn’t immune to the temptations of social media, but knowing she doesn’t have to rely on props for engagement has made her a stronger creator. “It’s actually empowering to know I’m not giving in to the pressure of other people and I’m not projecting a false image of myself,” she said. “You learn to talk about fashion in a different way, because you’re being more creative in your styling.” Fashion At Warp SpeedIt’s a game of chicken or the egg to decide who is to blame for the culture of waste: social media or fashion itself? The answer is a toxic combination of both. Alice Marwick, a professor of communications at the University of North Carolina, credits this to digital culture accelerating some of the more insidious patterns of the industry. “It’s very rare to see a behaviour on social media that has no basis in pre-social media. The behaviours that tend to take off are the ones that already have a precedent in our culture,” said Marwick. “Fashion culture has sped up in the last couple of decades. Trends now can be trends that disappear in a matter of months. Something can be in style and then be out of style in a moment.”The consequences of a short life cycle for garment — now dependent on its longevity on social media — is our environment. In the face of potentially irreversible climate crisis, it could not be more clear that the draws of social media, measured in likes and shares, is not worth the harm it’s doing to the planet.All in all, it may be unfashionable to repeat an outfit. But given the choice between less engagement on social media and the utter destruction of our ecosystem, perhaps Lizzie was in the right after all.