Rhetorical Analysis Of Global Climate By Elizabeth Dodwdeswell

853 Words2 Pages

In Elizabeth Dowdeswell’s editorial on global climate change the issue of a global catastrophe is addressed in a way to appeal to an audience they is unfamiliar with the eminent danger. Dodwdeswell’s line of argument is effective in that it draws clear sides and essentially condemns one while pushing the reader to take the side of the other. The tactics which she employs offer the reader an opportunity to assess the situation for themselves and declare a course of action.
The logos behind Dodeswell’s is that if we do not take action against the eminent threat of global climate change, the world as we know it will suffer the consequences. It is most reasonable to assume that for most readers that who reader this article will believe that same …show more content…

“Now the global climate is projected to warm up a few degrees more, but this time within the space of just a few decades, promising equally profound consequences for life on Earth.
This should be rather important to us.” This passage illustrates how the author is literally telling her audience that they should care what is going on. The author’s ethos appears to be one of an educated activist whom has taken her descriptive talents to a universal understanding. She appears to be able to express her ideas through methods sophisticated enough for well read colleagues in addition to a simplicity that anyone could understand.
By appealing to a broader audience, she is able to more effectively convey her message, without bogging her readers down with words they would not be able to understand. “When the world is informed that unless greenhouse-gas emissions are significantly reduced, the Earth could, during the next century, warm almost as much as it has over the past 10,000 years, with potentially devastating consequences for people and the environment, it is business as usual.” The statement prompts immediate reaction without much thought and the brunt of the message is quickly …show more content…

She describes an ice age and how slowly over the course of 10,000 years the earth became to warm and the planet underwent a dramatic change. She then goes on to say that this series of events was taking place again, only now it was happening within the next hundred years. She also provided that according to the newly agreed community of scientists now agree that relatively 60% of Carbon emissions need to be reduced in order to avert global disaster. The enabling assumption is that polluting the earth is bad, also that the world climate changing drastically for the worse is a bad thing. It is hard to believe that many dispute these assumptions which make it hard to not accept this article and adopt it as one’s moral standard. The backing is simply demonstrated by the claims and evidence presented by scientists in the field of climate change. The article expresses that the differing views regarding the issue are not easy to come by and that those who do reject the claim are linked to some sort of petroleum company. The argument within this article is straightforward and does not allude to a larger picture. It is simple, the earth is facing cataclysmic climate change and that we must act quickly in order to remedy this

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