TED Talk by Cary Fowler

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I once played this game where you had to pick a card and it would have a category on it. You would read the word out loud then go around and have to say a type that matched the category and keep going around till someone can’t think of a type. Once the word was apple, it was the shortest round for once the types Gala, Red Delicious, McIntosh and Granny Smith were all named we couldn’t think of anymore! Which is a point Cary Fowler, an agriculture expert, makes. In a TED talk Fowler gave a speech titled, One Seed at a Time, Protecting the Future of Food, discussing how we have lost almost all of the diversity in crops. Going from having thousands of diversity in crops to now only knowing a few hundred or less. With that and future climate changes things could take a turn for the worse with our lack of diversity in our agriculture. Fowler is able to make a strong argument using ethos, logos and pathos throughout his talk that is one persuasion at a time.
To paraphrase what Fowler talks about is how we need to realize that diversity is being lost in the agricultural system. We have hundreds even thousands of different types of wheat, rice and beans and we can’t even conceive of this and so they are being lost. As an outcome we are coming to the point where there are only a few types of beans and rice left. He informs us that we need to start saving these varieties because when drastic climate change comes around in the future the crops growing now may not be able to do well in the future climates. But if we have all the thousands of different varieties then it is likely that at least one of them will be able to grow in future climates. He then goes on to tell us what has been done so far to solve this problem and how he has starte...

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...ut it being noticed all to well. Putting this advertisement slip aside Fowler’s argument is well supported and tied together with one persuasion at a time.

Works Cited

"Advisors." Global Crop Diversity Trust. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.
Fowler, Cary. "One Seed at a Time, Protecting the Future of Food." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. TED, Aug. 2009. Web. 13 Feb. 2014. .
Hymowitz, Theodore. "Jack Rodney Harlan, June 7, 1917–August 26, 1998 | By Theodore Hymowitz | Biographical Memoirs." BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS. The National Academies Press, n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2014. .
"Laureates, Cary Fowler (1985, Norway)." Rightlivelihood. The Right Livelihood Award, n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2014. .

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