Humanity’s Responsibility

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The article Becoming Greta: ‘Invisible Girl’ to Global Climate Activist, With Bumps Along the Way written by Somini Sengupta addresses the environmental issues our world is facing known as climate change, and how a mentally ill girl named Greta is demanding action on climate change. I was fascinated how a girl suffering from crippling depression was suddenly able to change and shame the world into addressing climate change. Climate change has never been addressed properly, most people know that the issue exists, but does not act upon it. On the other hand, others tend to go into complete denial when it comes to addressing this issue. The author’s writing really hooked my attention since she explains the story in detail from different perspectives, the crowd and Greta herself. Moreover, the author includes facts about climate change showing the impact it has on our environment. In the article, Greta said: “It’s sometimes annoying when people say, ‘Oh you children, you young people are the hope. You will save the world’… I think it would be helpful if you could help us just a little bit.” It shows the irony how adults are the ones warning us about climate change all the time, but they depend on us to act upon it. Although this article was just written recently, it seems climate change that is addressed in the article will become an even bigger issue in the future. The article portrays how humans are often in denial about things they do that has a negative effect. Instead of being in denial, people should accept what they have done and act upon the consequences. I think Greta is an inspiration for me to take responsibility upon my actions.

Problematic Technology

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For the first seven years of my life, I lived in China, and while living there I went through the Chinese education system, which is very different from what we do in Canada. Teachers would force students to copy entire sections and pages from textbooks to make them remember the information. This article I chose talks about how a Chinese girl uses a robot that mimicked her handwriting to cheat the system, which caught my eye because I can see myself in her shoes doing the same thing. The authors, Daniel Victor and Tiffany May, kept the information simple and showed many different opinions on the subject from different people. They also pointed out how it’s ironic that writing out texts repeatedly is a form of punishment in China, even though it’s supposed to help us learn. Although the robot that mimics handwriting was only created not too long ago, people have still found ways to cheat the Chinese education system before. Take me for example, when I was forced to copy phrases, I used to tie two pencils together to write twice as fast as one. This reveals the universality of this article, and how people may find even more ways to cheat in the future. Our world is becoming more and more dependent on technology and this article demonstrates how machines can be used to cheat. Personally, I don’t think the girl is doing the right thing by cheating, although I may do the same; but at the same time, Chinese education seems a bit extreme by going to such lengths forcing students to copy phrases over and over.