33. The Earth is Full Speech Analysis

Paul Gilding's speech, "The Earth is Full", is effective because he had good contents and he uses rhetorical devices that further encourages the reader to take in his information. He starts off the speech by painting a negative picture of what the world would be like if we continued to use resource the way we do now. He uses repetitions and parallel structure like "full of... full of... full of..." to emphasize his points. He also makes his audience feel engaged because he uses words like "we" and "us" (for example, "we have to end our denial".) He acknowledges questions or doubts the audience might have by saying "you think..." and then provides a comprehensive counter attack. He continuously asks the audience to "imagine" what things would be like in the future. He repeats and rephrases his points to make things clear for the audience. He provides some statistics (we are using about 1.5 Earths), but does not overload them and overwhelm the audience. He tries to raise awareness, especially on the fact that if the Earth is to be sustainable, we will not experience the economic growth we are so used to. Finally, he ends his speech with a very positive scenario of the future, but we will have to take actions now.