My temper is rising. Must be global warming…
- Go through the article and number the paragraphs.
- Look at the source of this article. What does it say about the target readership?
- Now this piece is emotive in reverse; it is just as evangelical about not acting on fears of global warming as the articles on pages 4 7 5 were in the other direction.
- The headline takes a humorous approach, linking Hulme’s rising emotional temperature with allegations that the earth’s temperature is rising. This is expanded upon in paragraph 1.
- Paragraph 2 alleges that people are using global warming as a universal villain, to which everything bad thing can be attributed. I like the inherent contradiction in “Man-made global warning has become the new Act of God”. Is this an oxymoron, do you think? You need to know that Act of God is what insurers say when they want not to pay out on policies; certain things, like lightning strikes, are Acts of God and cannot be insured against. Hulme is saying that we use global warming as an excuse not to take responsibility for a whole range of things which are wrong in the world. Identify and quote the hyperbolic (possibly) sentence in which he shows the extent of this range of problems.
- Paragraph 3 uses 4 metaphors/ clichés. Identify, quote and explain the significance of these.
- I like the elegant movement, at the beginning of paragraph 4, from “warming” to “cooling or even freezing”, and the metaphor which it encapsulates. Explain in your own words the point Hulme is making here.
- Still in paragraph 4, why is the example of the Inuit (PC terminology for Eskimo, a term we may no longer use) ironic? Explain.
- Look at the word “crusade” in paragraph 5. Explain its significance and suggest why Hulme may have chosen to use it.
- I really like the patterning in this paragraph, whereby “airports” is matched with “grounded”, “road” with “parked” and “housing” with “demolished”. Though I don’t agree with what he is saying, his is my favourite writing style in this anthology so far.
- In paragraph 6 Hulme acknowledges the uncertainty surrounding the issue of climate change, but turns it to his advantage. He seems to suggest that “the only way is up” (to quote a cheesy song) and that we may find in our future the solution to our present problems – if we indeed have any, which he does not admit.
Paragraph 7 is consciously hyperbolic, as a self aware counter to the emotive material to which he is responding. He closes, in paragraph 8, with a parody of the more usual calls for action to which we are accustomed.
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