Comparative Discourse Strategies in Environmental Advocacy: Analysing the Rhetoric of Greta Thunberg and Chris Packham

Abstract

This paper examines the rhetoric and argumentation of two prominent environmental activists, Greta Thunberg and Chris Packham. From the perspective of Ecolinguistics, Thunberg has given voice to a generational movement for change, galvanising young people everywhere through high-profile protests and speeches. Packham represents British mainstream environmentalism, notably as the presenter of the acclaimed nature documentary ‘Springwatch’. We argue that their influence partially stems from their alignment with dominant cultural narratives: Thunberg’s emphasis on intergenerational discord and Packham’s connection to the natural world. We analyse both figures via the lens of the ‘emotionalisation of media discourse’, highlighting argumentation strategies that feature expressions of negative emotions of which anger is a type. Thunberg’s famous ‘How dare you?’ outburst at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit and Packham’s statement to Novara Media, ‘I am more angry now than at any point since my 20s’, exemplify this trend. We explore the pragmatic implications of their argumentative and discursive strategies, suggesting that while both have significantly elevated the profile of ecological activism, their discourse may also have a potentially divisive aspect.

1. Introduction

1.1. Intro (i)

In this paper, we focus on anger in the rhetoric and argumentation of two prominent environmental activists, Greta Thunberg and Chris Packham. The former has given voice to a generational movement for change, galvanising young people everywhere via high profile protests and speeches (Jung et al. 2020), while the latter (Ponton 2022) is the face of mainstream British environmentalism, among other roles acting as presenter of the critically acclaimed BBC nature documentary Springwatch.

From the perspectives of the ‘emotionalisation of media discourse’ (Zappettini et al. 2021) and Ecolinguistics (Stibbe 2015, 2018), we focus on the role in such discourse of so-called ‘negative’ emotions, especially those found under the broad heading of ‘anger’, which include rage, frustration, indignation, resentment, petulance, bitterness, and so on. Such emotional elements characterise the discourse of social protest, where a certain degree of ‘righteous indignation’ is viewed as socially acceptable, at least in most Western democracies. Though the expression of anger may often be a dispreferred option in everyday interaction, in contexts of social justice, as (Solomon and Stone 2002, p. 419) point out, this assessment may change:

Anger is another “deadly” sin in Christian ethics, but Aristotle proclaims in his ethics that a man who does not get angry (at the right person, at the right time, in the right way) is a “dolt”.

In his book on anger, Averill 1982 underlines the social relevance of this emotion as a response to ‘events in which the actions of others are perceived to be unjust, unfair, or contrary to acceptable societal norms’ (Averill 1982; Tagar et al. 2011, p. 158).

It may be asked how appropriate it is for environmentalists to express themselves in emotive language, for several reasons. Firstly, from a strategic point of view, if there is a risk that angry words and deeds may alienate sections of an audience, then self-control should perhaps be exercised. The temperature of climate protest has risen in recent years thanks to the increasingly dramatic actions of groups like Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and lately, Just Stop Oil, whose acts of social disruption succeed in drawing media attention, but also tend to provoke angry responses from members of the public whose cultural or sporting events have suffered attack. Secondly, environmentalism itself is a holistic movement with deep roots in traditional philosophies and religious systems (Jenkins et al. 2016; Hart 2017). At the heart of most forms of environmental thinking is the notion of harmony between human and non-human and of respect for all forms of life and the physical environment; to express anger towards fellow humans would seem to spring from a different mindset. From a deep ecological perspective (Naess 1973), it would seem misguided to strive for the spread of Gaia-centrism while expressing oneself in a violent or angry manner.

To a degree, both subjects reflect Aristotle’s characterisation of angry speech, in the sense that both clearly feel outraged at the state of the world’s ecosystems and the actions of humans in creating an unprecedented ecological crisis. Moreover, both may share the hope of evoking an echo in the audience of their own anger, thus kindling a flame of environmental activism. As (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969, p. 502) observe, ‘The reactions one hopes for may be of an emotional nature. A speaker may even gradually induce anger in his audience’. Rhetorically, anger is part of the ‘pathos’ dimension of the public address, while manifest care for the environment implicit in such an emotive stance will have a positive impact on the ‘collective ethos’ (Amossy and Orkibi 2021)1 of both speakers, especially among listeners already sympathetic to their ideals.

Greta Thunberg burst on the scene in 2019 with her famous ‘How dare you’? discourse at the UN Climate Action Summit, while Packham has said that ‘I am more angry now than at any point since my 20s’ (Novara Media describes itself as follows: “Novara Media is an independent media organisation addressing the issues that are set to define the 21st century, from a crisis of capitalism to racism and climate change”, Novara Media: https://novaramedia.com/about/ (accessed on 18 May 2024). Thus, this aims to to probe the function of anger in this approach to argumentation and discursive framing (Nisbet 2009) and how it may assist speakers to achieve their desired rhetorical goals. It is assumed that the discourse of both has an overall persuasive function, even where this is not overt. Both aim to win over listeners to stand with ecological activists, join the ongoing struggle, change patterns of thought and behaviour, and so on. This means that their discourse is mostly sustained by implicit ideologies that help account for their choices at the level of rhetoric, as is the case with much political discourse (see, e.g., Halmari and Virtanen 2005).

1.2. Intro (ii) Greta Thunberg and Chris Packham: Kindred Spirits

In the realm of environmental advocacy, Greta Thunberg and Chris Packham have emerged as significant figures, each employing distinct approaches to further the cause of environmental preservation and climate action.

Environmental veteran Chris Packham has profoundly impacted the field through a strategy that combines legal advocacy, public education, and direct activism. Packham’s documentary filmmaking underscores his dedication to raising public awareness about critical environmental issues, while his personal advocacy, his veganism and vocal opposition to hunting and wildlife persecution, exemplify his commitment to environmental principles. He is an acknowledged expert on the illegal wildlife trade (Duthie et al. 2017). In his memoir, Fingers in the Sparkle Jar 2016, Packham describes ‘enchanting extrasensory experiences’ related to non-human creatures (Stenning 2022).

Greta Thunberg set off a global movement through her Fridays for Future campaign, an initially solitary protest the lack of government action on climate change. Her ability to mobilise global youth and her direct engagement with political and environmental issues make her the most prominent contemporary voice for urgent climate action (Ponton and Raimo 2024). Despite significant opposition, her advocacy, with its direct communication style and focus on tangible outcomes, has had a substantial impact on the global discourse on climate change.

Both Thunberg and Packham, despite their differing methods of engagement, use discourse strategically in their advocacy of environmental issues (Stenning 2022). Packham’s multi-level approach complements Thunberg’s mobilisation of youth and public engagement strategies. Their collective impact on the environmental movement underscores the significance of diverse approaches in promoting sustainable change and highlights their role as kindred spirits in the ongoing struggle for a more sustainable and equitable world. It should be noted that neither are especially known for angry discourse; both are seasoned communicators who give numerous public appearances in a variety of emotional styles. In this paper, we are concerned with instances where anger seems relevant to their role as environmental activists and feeds into their attempt to influence public opinion.

Curiously, both self-identify as cognitively diverse, and construct a discursive identity that highlights this aspect of their personalities, referring variously to ‘a form of autism’, ‘Asperger’s’, ‘on the spectrum’, etc. Greta wrote a book entitled No One is Too Small to Make a Difference 2019, including her talks from 2018 to 2019, with two that ‘connect her activism to neurological difference’ (Stenning 2022). She has been ‘subject to abuse and adoration in the light of her environmental activism, and the abuse has often referred to her Asperger’s and the psycho-emotional effects of misfitting’ (Stenning 2022). Far from downplaying the question, it becomes for both a discursive weapon: Greta, for example, speculates that a concern for the environment may distinguish those on the spectrum, making them the ‘normal’ ones, insinuating that the rest of us have mental issues:

I think in many ways that we autistic are the normal ones and the rest of the people are pretty strange. They keep saying that climate change is an existential threat and the most important issue of all. And yet they just carry on like before.2

For his part, it is plain that Packham’s love for the natural world is closely bound up with his condition, and his openness about this forms an important part of his public persona and environmental mission (see, for example, the moving interview he gave in 2023 to Guardian journalist Simon Hattenstone)3.

2. Background: Anger

The identification of what constitutes an instance of anger in discourse has many problematic features. In the absence of non-verbal features, such as sentence stress, intonation, tone, pitch, loudness, body language, and so on, this is especially true. It is quite rare for a speaker to explicitly state ‘I am angry’ as Packham does in the example quoted above: indeed, in such cases, it is possible that the exercise of self-awareness involved in making such a statement might mitigate the anger itself. There may be emotive lexical signals such as swearing (Bednarek 2019), hyperbole or intensification that alert us to the presence of anger, though in each case of these, consideration of non-verbal factors may be necessary to account for the phenomenon.

On an ordinary societal level, anger may be viewed in two senses; it may either be the manifestation of an emotion provoked by circumstances, such as the ‘road rage’ stimulated in a driver by another motorist’s actions, a tardy red light change, and so on. Or it may be a sort of underlying mood or feeling towards a specific issue or topic, something that colours a person’s worldview but mostly lies latent. Political questions often engage this kind of emotional response. The climate crisis makes many environmentally aware people angry, for example, at the lack of government action, while disengaged citizens may become angry with the initiatives of groups like Just Stop Oil. One can imagine angry emotions being vented whenever the subject becomes a talking point but also that the participants mostly go about their daily lives in a normal fashion at other times. Anger in this sense would be a sort of emotional potential, a feeling that crystallises into attitudes, in the sense envisaged by Martin and White, who view the emotive substrata of human cognition—what they term ‘Affect’—as the basis for other kinds of evaluative responses (Martin and White 2005, p. 45). One may also refer to one’s feelings in a detached way, for example, in a reflective discussion, such as the following involving Chris Packham:

don’t quote me on this I don’t have the figures but given that you know eight out of ten of the world’s fisheries are overfished it’s likely that they are overfishing just statistically maybe they’re not who knows but whatever, it’s…I don’t know it’s unconscionable and yet it’s happening and we get angry about it4

Such a reference to anger conforms to the pattern described above that sees it as a response to a perceived injustice, and in this sense ‘anger’ could be seen as the default position of an environmentalist like Packham towards the range of abuses suffered by nature and the non-human world from human activities. Packham is not expressing anger in this moment; on the contrary, in the specific discursive context, he is construing solidarity with his interlocutor, as well as positioning sympathetic listeners within the environmentalist ingroup.

For an example of a more direct, dialogical expression of anger, consider Greta’s breakthrough speech, to the UN General Assembly in 2019:

Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

As in Packham’s discourse, there is reference to background environmental facts that justify the emotional attitude, but the underlined phrase is a lexical realisation of actual anger, exploding forcibly into the discourse. It is as if Greta realises that she is speaking to the very people responsible for the environmental crisis and for depriving her of a normal childhood, which would account for this conventional expression of outrage.

3. Literary Review

The increased emotionalisation of public discourse has been a topic extensively studied in linguistics and other social sciences in recent years (Mishra 2018; Nikunen 2018a, 2018b; Mackenzie and Alba-Juez 2019; Ekman 2019; Koschut 2020, etc.). Like (Lerner and Rivkin-Fish 2021, p. 3), we take the term as referring to ‘the legitimisation, intensification and emphasis on emotional discourse in collective spheres of life, both formal and informal.’ The phenomenon characterises political discourse, where the alliance between populist parties and their leaders and the affordances of social media are progressively transforming political communication (Wahl-Jorgensen 2019; Nikunen 2018a; Breeze 2020). Flinders (2020, p. 31) accounts for the Gordian knot of emotional discourse and populism in economic and cultural terms:

The promise of freedom, stability and prosperity is delivered to a chosen few but not the masses. The ranks of the disaffected understandably feel angry, disillusioned and ‘left behind’, susceptible to demagogues and populists.

It has been suggested that emotions are not universals but are instead constructed through cultural lenses, as Lutz 1986 argues:

[the] cultural meaning system that constitutes the concept of emotion has been invisible because we have assumed that it is possible to identify the essence of emotion, that the emotions are universal, and that they are separable from both their personal and social contexts.

(Lutz 1986, p. 288)

This insight is crucial for understanding how emotions, manipulated within public discourse, serve specific political ends, highlighting the role of digital media in amplifying emotionalization. Digital platforms enhance the reach and intensity of emotional messages, often prioritising rapid emotional engagement over deliberate discussion (Wahl-Jorgensen 2019).

The emotional public sphere, as described by (Koschut 2020), showcases how swiftly emotions circulate, influencing public sentiment and political mobilisation. This digital dynamic reshapes the landscape of political communication, and like Wahl-Jorgensen, Koschut too notes that emotional responses often precede and sometimes replace detailed analysis. Additionally, the interplay of gender within emotional public discourse reveals significant biases affecting how messages are perceived and whose voices are deemed legitimate. The stereotyping of women as overly emotional often marginalises their voices in political and public arenas, casting them as irrational or not credible (Lutz 1986).5

In political philosophy, Lepoutre 2018 defends the constructive potential of emotions like anger in the public sphere, suggesting that ‘when employed skillfully, angry speech promotes a greater understanding of existing injustices’ (Lepoutre 2018, p. 398). At points in his account of political rhetoric, Walton (2007) highlights the contribution of emotions to successful deployment of logos in general or of a specific rhetorical device such as ad hominem (Walton 2007, pp. 190–91).

Another significant study focusing on digital platforms, such as X (Twitter) and Facebook, which amplify the intensity of emotional messages, is that of (Jasper 2018). He investigates the role of emotions in social movements, distinguishing between affective emotions, which are experienced internally, and reactive emotions, triggered by external events. He describes how emotions fuel participation and are shaped by group experiences, significantly impacting the duration and efficacy of movements. By integrating theories from scholars like (Hochschild 1983; Thoits 1989; Benford and Snow 2000), he demonstrates how emotions can be strategically utilised in movements for framing and mobilisation, highlighting their complex role in driving collective action and shaping social change.

Another relevant perspective for our paper is the research by (Holmes et al. 2020), which provides a broader sociological perspective. They examine the pivotal role of emotions in reshaping the foundations of sociology, positing that emotions are integral to understanding key sociological themes such as power, politics, and social transformations. Their approach views emotions as social constructions, which are essential for analysing social phenomena at both macro and global levels, marking the ‘emotional and affective turn’ in contemporary social sciences. In their words, ‘emotions may take on exaggerated importance at certain times, in certain places’ (Holmes et al. 2020, p. 6).

Emotions in public discourse, then, are not merely reactions but are cultural and social constructs that vary widely across different societies and groups. As Lutz 1986 critically demonstrates, the concept of emotion as a Western cultural category highlights the variability and context-dependency of emotional expressions in public discourse, which is vital for linguists and social scientists in understanding their role and significance in social interactions and public communication.

Finally, another relevant perspective for our discussion is the identification of an ‘us and them’ pattern, a key topic in many studies of political discourse (Oktar 2001; Van Dijk 2005; Wodak 2008, etc.). Such studies highlight the potential of discourse for creating in and outgroups, aligning listeners according to the degree to which they are in accord with the speaker’s rhetorical positions. Anger may be used to emphasise the defects of the outgroup and bolster argumentation against their behaviour (Tanaka-Matsumi 2014; Cheung et al. 2017).

4. Materials and Methods

The corpus analysed comprises nine public speeches by Greta Thunberg between 2018 and 2022 (Ponton and Raimo 2024) and eleven speeches by Chris Packham between 2017 and 2023 (see Appendix A), mostly accessed via Youtube. These texts encompass various formats of public discourse, including speeches at climate rallies, presentations at educational institutions, interviews on Good Morning Britain and addresses at global summits. From the limited number of available discourses, we selected speeches with some relevance to the emotional dimensions outlined above. After a close reading of transcripts and vision of the relevant videos (where available), we identified speech fragments that either involved a direct expression of anger, or made some reference to such a state via a lexical item such as ‘anger’, ‘angry’, exclamations such as ‘How dare you?’, and the like.

As a first step in appreciating the role of anger in persuasive argumentation, we identified the topoi in the texts. This complex notion (see Žagar 2010) is used more in a literary than a strictly Aristotelian sense (Žagar 2010, pp. 20–21), to mean a discursive nexus that concentrates a specific argument, whose contours are accessible to analysis. The topoi, as well as the discursive frames (Goffman 1974; Entman 1993; Alexander 2009), were retrieved manually from the co-text around these keywords by applying a process of pragmatics-based reasoning to each. As an example of this, consider the following, from Chris Packham:

so those sorts of things that constantly spit in our eye are the sorts of things that make you and I really angry and we turn that anger into motivational action that’s why we’re having this conversation that’s why you bothered to set up your your news and what you do I presume that that’s part and parcel [...] I suppose you know whilst we see that as a positive thing we’ve also got to be realistic about what we’re achieving and if we get to the point where we think that we can’t possibly win and when I say win I don’t mean cross a line get a medal get a cup, I mean make progress then that this disempowerment is what leads to bloody revolution and we could do without a bloody revolution we could do with a just transition

Emotionalisation is construed here by the high-intensity lexical choices (‘spit in our eye’, ‘bloody revolution’) and references to the emotional state (‘anger’, ‘really angry’). For the identification of the topos, the key phrase here is ‘we turn that anger into motivational action’.

The topoi are identified via the application of discourse pragmatics, and answering the kind of context-related questions outlined in discussions of relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986; Wilson and Sperber 2015); in this case, these are ‘what kind of anger is Packham talking about’?, ‘how does our knowledge of Packham affect our understanding of his argument here’? To which the answers are that he is talking about the kind of anger that makes people want to do things about social injustices, firstly; and secondly, as an activist, Packham is reflecting on the strategic usefulness of individual anger (‘we see that as a positive thing’) but also on its limitations (‘we’ve also got to be realistic’). In sum, his discourse represents a reflection on the role and usefulness of anger in social activism.

Frames are shared cognitive models of situations, which are co-constructed in discourse by speakers and listeners during interactions (Jones 2024). Analogous steps to those just outlined for topoi are used to identify the frames involved via a consideration of semantic associations in the co-text. In the above example, the violent depiction of social change leads to our identification of a ‘revolution’ frame.

The argumentation analysis involves a consideration of both emotionalisation (Konat et al. 2024) and framing; in this instance, the implicit argument is ‘if we don’t want a bloody revolution (and nobody wants to see that), then we need to find other means of bringing about a ‘just transition’. Packham uses emotionalisation to rhetorically tap into the well of environmental feeling that characterises his supporters (the majority of those present in the audience at the speech), and to persuade sceptics and impartial listeners that environmental feelings run high and, therefore, out of an instinct of self-preservation (to avoid a ‘bloody revolution’), they too should try to resolve the problems urgently and peacefully. It is plain that in such an example there is a clear relation between the emotionalised discourse and the persuasive impact of the speech. In Aristotelian terms, this would be referred to as the use of pathos (Konat et al. op. cit.); Packham employs a familiar trope from the realm of political rhetoric, the depiction and creation of a state of fear.

Finally, our discussion of the speakers’ use of anger in argumentation encompasses what (Searle 1969) calls the derivation of ‘ought’ from ‘is’ or, in a political sphere, the connection between the description of realities and the policies that can be proposed to deal with them. In the climate debate, there is consensus among the world’s scientists over the epistemic proposition that global warming is real; from this stems the worldwide political agreement over the deontic proposition that urgent action is needed. This logic underlies events such as COP26, which features in our corpus. Politicians of the far-right, such as Donald Trump, attack this chain of reasoning by denying the validity of data in the epistemic component, i.e., by arguing that there is no proof, that global warming is due to natural cycles, and so on. Anger and frustration may arise among environmentalists because the other side refuses to recognise facts which are manifest to them, and instances of this kind of anger in our corpus are found.6

To sum up, we explore the corpora for such instances of text, where anger combines with framing to contribute to argumentative topoi (Frost 2017; Žagar 2010) and compare occurrences of anger in the discourse of both protagonists.

5. Results

Table 1. Packham’s and Thunberg’s angry topoi.

Packham	(i)	Those sorts of things that constantly spit in our eye are the sorts of things that make you and I really angry and we turn that anger into motivational action
	(ii)	I don’t know it’s unconscionable and yet it’s happening and we get angry about it but you know we get angry up to the point that we generate the awareness that you’ve spoken of but nothing seems to move on from that
	(iii)	I think as people get more and more angry as they reach their end game then people do as I’ve said lash out
	(iv)	I was upset by that I was angry actually very angry and it took some time to begin to you know use that anger creatively and while say sometime by the time I got to sort of 16, 17 I realized that it was going to be there was no point in being angry with people I didn’t you know need anything or want anything from them so I wanted to turn that anger into something very positive I’d still that do that today I’m angry about the way our birds of prey are treated on Grouse moors
	(v)	Our numbers are constantly growing and our energy is constantly growing our frustration and anger is growing and as long as we find methods we will therefore win.
	(vi)	What the attitudes and anger and everything that we’re doing now I just wish we’d been doing it 20 30 years ago.
Greta	(vii)	But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that.
	(viii)	How do you respond to the fact that basically nothing is being done about this without feeling the slightest bit of anger?
	(ix)	A two-week long celebration of business as usual and blah blah blah.
	(x)	People seem to have to see me as an angry teenager who condemns every individual’s behavior which is kind of funny to me.
	(xi)	I think sometimes you need to anger some people like for instance the school strike movement would never have been so would never have become so big if there wasn’t friction.

shows the argumentative topoi that concern lexical realisations (anger, angry) in the data.

We identify the following topoi in the data:

• Anger is a powerful motivator for activism (i, ii, iv, v, vi, ix, xii);
• Activism is risky because it can generate the anger of those criticised (iii);
• Anger is a personal response to environmental injustice (i, ii, iv, vii, ix, xi);
• Anger may colour and determine specific forms of discourse (x).

In this discussion section, we will omit topoi (2) and (4) since they do not highlight the role of anger in advancing argumentation. The most common topos is the first, which is found in the discourse of both speakers, and crosses over with the third to a degree. The difference is one of emphasis, but clearly, the two topoi may be connected, as Packham himself confirms in (i), where he depicts the causal link between a personal affective state and an environmental calling:

those [..] are the sorts of things that make you and I really angry and we turn that anger into motivational action

In Packham (i), which was used as an example in the Materials and Methods section, anger is of the ‘underlying mood or feeling’ type discussed above rather than an actual emotional manifestation. It construes solidarity with his interlocutor, a fellow environmental activist. Packham discursively includes him in the ingroup, implying that both share the same emotional response via the phrase ‘you and I’, and the plural personal pronoun in ‘we turn that anger’. He also presumes that the other’s anger at things that ‘spit in our eye’—again, the pronoun co-opts the interlocutor’s emotional state—has determined the interviewer’s own activism (‘why you bothered to set up your news’). At the base of the discourse, then, is a shared potential for anger, which has already led to both becoming activists. The text goes on to indicate the ineffectiveness of environmental activism. The frame of a ‘bloody revolution’ is activated, shifting the focus of the discourse from the two interlocutors to wider society. Thus, the anger becomes a mass emotion, shared by an ingroup of like-minded members of the public. The revolution frame thus emphasises the ‘disempowerment’ of the masses rather than just that of the two speakers.

Packham makes it easy to appreciate the argumentative structure in this fragment by means of explicit evaluative signals that tell us exactly what outcomes are positive and negative from his perspective. The notion that ‘anger leads people to get involved in activism’ is seen as a ‘positive thing’, while a ‘bloody revolution’ is something we could ‘do without’, contrasting with the ‘just transition’ (by inference, something we could ‘do with’).7 Thus, the argument here could run as follows:

Since people’s disempowerment (in the context of environmental politics) could lead to bloody revolution and since this is something we could do without, those in power should act in order to bring about a just transition.

As already indicated, the emotive force of this discourse frame is considerable: a ‘bloody revolution’ is a situation where uncontrolled anger breaks forth in violence, unleashing emotional states like fear and terror.

If it is reduced to its skeletal structure, it becomes easy to identify the weak points in this argument, namely that it assumes a mass emotion on the part of the general public, a potential for revolution that is plainly unrealistic. Far from tapping into a reservoir of public anger, the more extreme environmental protest groups such as Just Stop Oil seem to evoke as much hostility by their actions as support for them (Niceforo 2024).

Another exemplar of this topos is Packham (v), an exchange at the 2022 climate summit, COP 26, with John Robb8, which again touches on the theme of frustration/anger and activism:

If they don’t achieve anything in there we are achieving a lot out here and our numbers are constantly growing and our energy is constantly growing our frustration and anger is growing and as long as we find methods we will therefore win because we will hold them to account and I think really it’s the citizens of planet earth that are going to solve this problem not people that turn up, grandstand, eat a load of haggis [...] and then fly home in their private jets. I mean they can’t even think that through, and so collectively I think that when it comes to you know the intelligence that we require to solve these problems, um I’m not saying that they’re all numpties in there at all, there were a lot of bright people um and and so forth but maybe their approach is not the one that we would take

This fragment highlights the ‘us and them’ pattern mentioned above, which discursively polarises the social world into right and wrong-thinking elements, channelling the ‘frustration and anger’ of the audience (implicitly co-opted into the ingroup) against ineffectual world leaders in their private jets (see table two, below):

US

Who are we?

-

Ordinary people (the ‘citizens of planet Earth’), climate activists.

What positive things are said about us?

-

We are achieving a lot (‘out here’, i.e., outside the venue);

-

We have energy;

-

We are frustrated and angry (which is good since it shows we want to get things done);

-

We are responsible (since we will hold ‘them’ to account);

-

We are intelligent (because we choose the ‘right approach’).

THEM

Who are they?

-

The world leaders ‘in there’, i.e., inside the COP venue.

What negative things are said about them?

-

They (likely) will not ‘achieve anything in there’;

-

They have a large share of responsibility, if not for the problems, then for finding solutions (we will ‘hold them to account’);

-

They ‘grandstand’ (i.e., they show off for media opportunities, using the occasion for self-promotion);

-

They eat a lot of haggis (they consume food that is environmentally unsustainable).

-

They travel by private jet (hence, contributing to the very problems they are supposed to be solving);

-

Though some are ‘bright’ people, they will not choose the right approach.

Table Two, ‘Us and Them’ in Packham’s COP 26 Interview

In Packham (i), we observed a reflection on anger, an emotive potential rather than an instance of its actual display in discourse. Here, Packham, on stage in front of a sympathetic audience, comes closer to an actual expression of anger. The line, ‘our frustration and anger is growing’, would have struck a chord in such a public scenario, though it is noticeable that Packham does not ‘milk’ their response in this sense but rather goes on to outline a rather nuanced evaluation of participants at the COP meeting. In this fragment, his argument relates to epistemic rather than deontic factors. While he recognises that those participating in the meeting have at least accepted the need for action, he questions their effectiveness and suggests that their behaviour makes them part of the problem:

Since powerful world leaders show that they are incapable of solving the problems and since we (the citizens of the Earth) have the energy, anger, and intelligence to find the right approach, the citizens of the Earth will find a solution as long as we find (the right) methods9.

Part of Packham’s persuasive effort is directed towards urging his audience of climate activists and sympathisers to engage in a search for ‘the right methods’. However, this deontic proposition seems subordinate to the desire to establish an epistemic perspective, i.e., that there is a clear divide across the whole world between the ‘citizens of the earth’ and their leaders. Thus, anger is depicted as a global phenomenon, as if a clamour for climate action began at the grassroots, and this epistemic picture underlies Packham’s optimistic predictions of a positive outcome. Thus, in this instance too, Packham uses anger in the sense of an underlying emotive potential; it is a feeling widely shared around the globe that may break out one day against ineffective leadership.

A focus on the argumentative frame again allows us to appreciate its strong and weak points. On a positive side is the use of features of pathos, such as humour and anger, which construe solidarity with his audience. By contrast, it is once again questionable how far his picture of global sentiment is in step with the realities of the situation. Another weakness emerges from the implicit contradiction in the following statement:

that’s what gives me hope because if they don’t achieve anything in there we are achieving a lot out here and our numbers are constantly growing and our energy is constantly growing our frustration and anger is growing

If we are ‘achieving a lot’, then the underlying emotional state should one of satisfaction, and thus the ‘frustration’ and ‘anger’ would be misplaced. Packham’s own anger is arguably manifest in such statements, and in his sarcastic descriptions of the world leaders, who are shown as cynical politicians exploiting the event for their own purposes (they ‘grandstand’), dine out (‘eat a load of haggis’), and demonstrate that this has all been a media opportunity and their VIP lifestyle will undergo no changes (‘fly home in their private jets’).

As (Frenda et al. 2022) have argued, sarcasm is intimately connected with displays of aggression and anger, and, if we now turn to consider examples from the discourse of Greta Thunberg, we find similar manifestations. Describing the same event as Packham, she says (Table 1 above, p. 7, Thunberg ix):

The COP has turned into a PR event where leaders are giving beautiful speeches and announcing fancy commitments and targets, while behind the curtains the governments of the Global North countries are still refusing to take any drastic climate action. It seems like their main goal is to continue to fight for the status quo and COP26 has been named the most exclusionary COP ever. This is no longer a climate conference, this is now a Global North Greenwash Festival. A two-week long celebration of business as usual and blah blah blah10.

The sarcastic phrase ‘blah blah blah’ is repeated three times in the speech and became a soundbite, communicating Greta’s scepticism about the event to a worldwide public, while the ironic framing of the event as a ‘Global North Greenwash Festival’ is another manifestation of the speaker’s ire. It is unclear whether the use of sarcasm may be viewed as an ‘outburst’ of anger, especially in a prepared speech of this kind; perhaps it may be seen in a sort of mid-position between outburst and underlying mood, or potential for anger.

Greta’s outgroup is clearly the same as Packham’s; ‘leaders’ and ‘governments of the Global North countries’. The ingroup is rather different; elsewhere in the speech, she mentions ‘more and more people’, ‘the most affected people in the most affected areas’, ‘future generations’, ‘the people living on the front lines’ and ‘us the people, including their own children’. Her ingroup is thus more nuanced; to speak of ‘more and more people’ is realistic since it recognises that there are some—perhaps even a majority—who reject climate change discourse. She only comes closer to Packham’s all-inclusive category in a final reference to ‘us the people’.

Like Packham, the focus of her argumentation here is more epistemic than deontic as she argues that events like the COP26 are simply useless:

We don’t need any more empty promises. We don’t need any more commitments that are full of loopholes and incomplete statistics and that ignore the historical emissions and climate justice. Yet, that is all that we are getting and no, that is not radical to say. Just look at their track record, they have had 26 COPs, they have had decades of blah blah blah and where has that led us? Over 50 percent of all our CO2 emissions have occurred since 1990 and about a third since 2005.

The argument here is as follows:

Since the COP meetings have been going since the 1990s and since all they do at these meetings is talk, no results have been brought about through action. Therefore, the COP meetings are useless.

Clearly there is also an implied deontic component here, along the lines of ‘since talking about this stuff is a waste of time, we need to stop talking and start doing things instead’. However, it is noticeable that Greta does not specify the forms that action needs to take anywhere in this speech.

Towards the end of the address, Greta echoes Packham’s ‘revolution’ frame when she states the following:

They cannot ignore our screams as we reclaim our power, we are tired of their blah blah blah.

The image of ‘screaming’ evokes the anger of the ‘powerless’ as, like Packham’s ‘citizens of the earth’, ‘we the people’ rise up against our ineffectual leaders. As in the episodes of Packham’s discourse that we discussed, Greta appears to use anger as a token in her discourse, which gives force to her argumentation by representing it as shared by a wide audience. At the same time, her aim is clearly also to use arguments that might increase the sense of anger and frustration among her supporters at the lack of effective political action.

In her breakout address, Greta’s more direct expressions of anger can be heard in the rhetorical utterance ‘how dare you?’, which is repeated three times during the short speech. She foregrounds the personal dimension of anger, claiming that the unnamed social actors in the outgroup construed by ‘you’ have ‘stolen my dreams and my childhood’. Personal anger becomes a token in a discourse where she contemplates the moral bona fides of the outgroup, which it is safe to infer consists of the world leaders and VIPs present at the UN General Assembly:

How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight. You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe11

Again, the argumentation structure refers to epistemic factors:

Since you are not evil and since if you really understood the urgency you would act, you do not really understand the urgency

The doubt stimulated over ideational realities (are these people evil or are they not?) once more feeds a deontic push directed at world leaders and others who might self-identify as responsible in some way, along the lines of ‘do something—if not, we will consider that you are evil’.

The discourse feeds an overall revolutionary frame, which manifests at the end of the speech, clarifying the contours of in and outgroup:

The young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.

Not only are world leaders arraigned, but by inference, all those who belong to older generations, whose quiescence has led to the current state of the climate (Ponton and Raimo 2024). As in certain speeches of Packham, Greta’s discourse here envisages an inevitable popular uprising on a global scale which, for reasons outlined above in the case of Packham, appears improbable.

6. Conclusions

Greta Thunberg and Chris Packham use anger as a central element in their rhetoric, albeit in distinct ways that reflect their individual contexts and audiences. Thunberg’s rhetoric, characterised by her impassioned speeches and confrontational style, channels the collective frustration and urgency felt by younger generations regarding the climate crisis (Jung et al. 2020). Her iconic ‘How dare you?’ speech at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019 serves as a poignant example of how personal indignation can galvanise a global movement, transforming individual frustration into collective action.

Packham’s approach, while also rooted in anger, is more multifaceted. His discourse blends legal advocacy, public education, and direct activism, often framed by his deep-seated frustration with environmental injustices (Ponton 2022). For instance, his statements about the treatment of birds on grouse moors illustrate how personal anger can drive long-term commitment to environmental causes. Such methods allow him to engage a broader audience, combining emotional appeal with concrete actions and educational efforts. (Martin 2004) notes that the strategic use of emotional appeals in discourse can enhance the persuasive power of advocacy, making Packham’s approach particularly effective.

With reference to the fact that both speakers self-identify as ‘on the spectrum’, it appears curious that both do deploy a considerable amount of pathos, including anger and frustration, both in a strategic, reflective sense and in occasional ‘outbursts’. One familiar trope about autism holds that it is precisely in the area of emotions that difficulties may occur (Hobson 2007; Ho et al. 2012). As (Crespi 2016) says, autism is ‘conventionally regarded as a neurodevelopmental disorder that involves deficits in social interaction and social communication’. Thus, when emotions are expressed, this may be performed in an inappropriate way since sufferers may lack understanding of the social frameworks that bind the majority of people. From this point of view, Greta’s outburst at the UN, where she frames world leaders as borderline child-abusers (‘you have stolen my childhood!’), was an impactful instance of emotional expression that may be seen as somewhat inappropriate.

The increased emotionalisation of media discourse plays a critical role in how both activists engage their audiences (Zappettini et al. 2021). Both Thunberg and Packham’s rhetoric fits into the framework of “righteous indignation” as socially acceptable in the context of social protest (Solomon and Stone 2002). However, the strategic deployment of anger can have varied pragmatic impacts. For example, while it may mobilise younger, social-media-savvy audiences, it risks alienating older demographics, who might perceive such expressions as immature or overly confrontational. Thunberg, especially, has been seen in this light. For example, in a high-octane comment typical of the raised emotional temperature of contemporary social media, Jeremy Clarkson said:

I simply don’t get the Thunberg phenomenon. She has no knowledge of how the world works, no manners and no letters after her name because instead of going to school, she’s been busy sailing round the world so she can be mardy and abusive to grown-ups.12

As Nisbet 2009 suggests, framing environmental issues in a way that resonates with diverse audiences is crucial for effective communication. Anger also serves as a powerful motivator for change. Thunberg’s direct appeals and Packham’s more reflective critiques both utilise anger to underscore the urgency of environmental issues and to call for immediate action. This is evident in their respective tropes; as we have seen, Thunberg may frame her discourse around themes of personal betrayal and urgency, while Packham emphasises systemic failures and the need for collective action. Their ability to frame anger within broader narratives of injustice and urgency helps to sustain engagement and drive activism.

Both Thunberg’s and Packham’s use of anger highlights different facets of environmental activism, suggesting that anger can both alienate and mobilise, depending on its expression and context, and their example underscores the importance of strategic emotional engagement in achieving advocacy goals (Lepoutre 2018).

A critical question arises: are ordinary people truly angry about climate change, as both speakers at times suggest? The answer is nuanced. While there is growing public recognition of climate issues, the intensity and expression of this anger vary widely. Despite the claims of both Packham and Thunberg concerning the ‘citizens of the world’, it is questionable whether the great mass of populations in developed countries have a real commitment to the kind of lifestyle changes that alone can impact the planet’s ecological situation.

Thunberg and Packham’s strategic use of anger in their discourse underscores the complex role of emotions in environmental advocacy. Their rhetoric, while potent and mobilising, must navigate the fine line between conveying urgency and maintaining broad appeal. Our analysis highlights the importance of strategic discourse in advancing the goals of the environmental movement and fostering a more sustainable and equitable world. The insights from this study underscore the significance of diverse advocacy approaches in promoting sustainable change, aligned with the broader objectives of environmental justice and ecological sustainability.