Nicholas Kristof's Article: Our Gas Guzzlers, Their Lives

The controversy on global warming has been increasing almost as rapidly as the climate itself. Although greenhouse gases could have, in some aspects, positive effects in our society, it comes at the cost of environmental damage. In his 2007 article, “Our Gas Guzzlers, Their Lives”, a two time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Nicholas D. Kristof calls to action the negative affects western green house gas emissions have in poverty-stricken countries like Africa. Kristof effectively establishes a one-sided argument through his use of rhetorical devices such as: an accusing tone, standardized diction, loaded language, and the use of ethos, pathos, and logos.

Nicholas Kristof begins his excerpt prosing the unfair life that western countries

The author uses first person plural possessive pronouns through out the entire article as a way to make the audience feel as if they are part of the issue as well. Using phrases as: “ our refusal”, “our...gases are killing people”, “our environmental irresponsibility” adds to the guilt that he places in his readers as well as contributes to the accusing tone of the excerpt. Kristof uses harsh words and phrases such as: “dies”(p3), “deadly”(p15), “Dying of hunger”(p17) “Disastrous”, and “catastrophic” (p15) for it provides an emotional impact, as opposed to using less deamining words that will not provoke empathy in the reader. Kristof frequently uses negative connotation for the same effect that might occur to the reader in order to make his argument persuasive. He uses standard diction for the average person is able to understand without being too informal, he provides a hint of elevated diction in order to keep the article

Kristof is best known for his comprehension about human suffering in third world countries. Kristof applies ethos through his article by exhibiting a handful of sources varying from local fishermen, agricultural scientist, to the President of Uganda. When discussing harvest fails in Africa, he quotes the agricultural scientist, Gerard Rusuku that has been studying global warming in Africa, presumably he does this in order to have a form of credibility. Following he introduces a somewhat irrelevant quote about “hippos being unhappy” by a local fisherman, this was done as a way to note that scientist, government officials, or specialists are not the only ones noticing this change, it is so abundantly clear that the locals, and animals are noticing. All of Kristof’s sources are people who are in Africa seeing this happen first hand rather than from another