Climate Crisis: Fossil Fuel Persuasive Letter

In February 2021 the government announced that it was going to open a coal mine in Cumbria. This horrified the climate expert Professor James E Hansen who wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to persuade him not to go ahead with the policy and to reconsider his climate policies. This letter uses a simplified extract of this letter to introduce the fossil fuel climate crisis that is currently emerging and focuses on the persuasive language techniques that the writer uses to persuade the Prime Minister to his point of view. A clean copy and an annotated copy of the abridged letter are included. A twenty-slide Powerpoint accompanies the lesson with introductory activities, context and a choice of post-analysis activities:

1. exam-style question on writing to persuade
2. article for school magazine
3. leaflet for younger students
4. further research on the ‘fee and dividend’ economy described in the letter.