Wyatt Kuebler

English 110 Freshman Composition

Sourced based essay

 

Global warming is something that has been around for millions of years and has been continuously functioning in the background to change the environment of the earth as it ages. However, in recent times there has been a debate on if humans have had an influence on the rise in temperature or if it is just a natural phenomenon. There have been people who debate on its factuality and reliability as a study. Scientists have found that there is significant evidence supporting the recent increase in temperature, but there are still many groups that still disagree despite countless sources telling us otherwise.

 

The rise in temperature should be an undeniable fact of modern-day. According to the article “Global warming is already here” by The Washington Post, there has been an almost worldwide rise in temperature of two degrees Celsius. This raise in temperature has led to areas where “substantial damage is clear”. The article then goes on to say that “humanity has steadily shifted the chemistry of the atmosphere” thus breeding this catastrophe into existence. The author of the article, The Washington Post, is often seen as a left-wing source with its target audience being young people who use the internet as their source of information, as well as active democrats in America as well as other countries. The author’s rhetorical situation consists of humanity’s influence on Global warming as the exigence. The author knows that the world has continued to warm at a documented rate over many years, however, the author instead talks about man’s effect on the temperature, persuading the audience to take their side on the existence of our influence as well as the effect it has on the world. The constraints the author has on their argument is that the current political leaders have continued to ignore the facts given to them by scientists for years, allowing for the rapid increase in temperature paired with the rapid decline of the earth’s ecosystem. The author claims that this ignorance has been a major limitation in the possible progress towards fixing this issue. The author says “All the more reason to change behavior now” by using the word now she expresses her tone as being frantic and nervous suggesting urgency in the manor. The author is writing this piece to express his fear of the rising temperature and his concern of the lack of intervention by leaders globally. He makes specific claims against Donald Trump and his unwillingness to acknowledge that global warming even exists in the first place. This article has been posted very recently, and I feel as though the author’s purpose was to show that even despite the ignorance of the current president of the United States, global warming is a very current problem that will in time affect everyone across the world. The author has written many articles like this in the past, this paired with his extensive evidence establishes his credibility, and helps readers be more trusting in his claim.

 

It has been known that there is a difference between natural global warming and human-caused global warming. In the article “Ten Billion Tons of Melt Water Poured off Greenland in a Day…” the author talks about how the concentration of temperature increase is “manifesting more intensely in the artic than anywhere else in the world.” And that “the natural variability is happening atop the long-term trend of human-caused global warming.” These viewpoints presented by the author suggest that the rampant melting is a concern, but at the same time we have yet to see any major change to our way of life. The exigence of this article is seemingly the same as the Washington Post’s article being the topic of global warming, however, the Audience of the piece seems to be different. The audience that the author is targeting is those affected by social medias inaccuracies, this group is mainly the under 30 demographic who use social media as their main source of information, this can be shown as the author makes specific claims against twitter. The restrictions in the piece would be that he has never been published by a large news source so the information he presents does not reach the amount of people that the original sources do. The author seems to be writing this article to fact check viral posts on social media, depicting the ice meltage as a sign of impending doom for humanity. His tone supports this as he has shown little to no bias in writing the article, instead placing the blame on humans as a species as opposed to any one person in particular. He does not deny that global warming doesn’t exist but rather tries to please both sides by showing the damage, but also saying that it is nothing we haven’t seen before in other years, specifically 2012 where the amount of water in the artic was even higher than this years. The author has many articles about global warming and uses most of them to not try to place blame or provide solutions, but instead to present facts and close debates. This can be proved by his genre of writing which is a blog written entirely by himself. He uses this medium to resist bias often used by writers in organized news companies, this offers him a chance to freely speak his mind without the need for editors or superiors who would normally shoot down ideas that they themselves or the company they work for did not agree with. His audience would be those people curious about global warming but are weary on the information given to them by mainstream media sources.

It can be assumed that scholars are on the side of believing in global warming, they are constantly turning out new studies and findings related to the cause of the rise in temperature. In the source posted by otsi.gov states two causes of global warming as being commons of carbon dioxide and methane sinks. The exigence in this article is slightly different as it speaks more on global carbon emissions as the main enemy in modern times, leading to pollution as well as global temperature rise. Their audience is those people who don’t believe in global warming, in addition to people who believe in global warming but think that there is nothing to do about it. The author seems to be lacking in tone and rather chooses to present facts with little to no evidence, but provides solutions to the problem stating that “a system of global tradeable permits, should be introduced to control global greenhouse gas emissions”. This is the closest example of a solution to the exigence presented earlier. This showing of a solution shown the stance of the author as someone who not only believes in the existence of global warming but also that there is a solution that is well within reach. The constraints of the apparent solution presented by the author would be the state of global politics and its inability to come to a common understanding of the available options to counteract the emissions. This paired with the ignorance of countries’ individual effects leading to a bigger and more impactful result on the global temperature and pollution levels.

Despite all of the people and scholars who have been providing valid arguments, evidence, and solutions, there are still groups of people who don’t believe in global warming. In an article posted by The BBC, Donald Trump said “I don’t believe it” when asked about his views on climate change. His opinions have also been supported by many of his followers and has started a movement in America to ignore all findings and studies having to do with global warming. The author sounds concerned and the tone of the article is somber, having little to no faith in the United States to do anything to combat climate change. This makes the exigence in this article drastically different than the other articles. The main problem the author of this article wants to present is the poor state of America’s government. The audience the author is trying to convince of his argument is those people in the county who are uncaring of America’s politics, with the authors point of writing the article to be to inspire those not in power to try to make a difference and have the mood of the country be pro-environment regardless of our current national opinion. The constraints of their hopeful outcome of writing the article is the attitude and motivation of the American people. Another constraint would also be the current political system and the way it is set up. The entire practice of government in America is in conflict with the ideas presented in the article as little to nothing can be done in America because of the very opposing views of the two most popular political parties. These difference in views leads to many years of back and forth debates on actions to be taken by the country, prolonging the issue and the ability to do anything about it. The article is seemingly left-wing for how it portrays Donald Trump in the political world, but the article takes advantage of its audience and provides evidence do solidify its reader’s opinion that climate change is real and the current president is actually wrong.

There are many sources, websites, and articles that all use rhetoric to attempt to gain more people to the side of the argument that global warming is indeed real, and is a very serious threat that is currently facing the entire world. The tone of most of the articles is often concerned for the state of the world or, aggravated at the lacking of anything being done.

 

 

Editorial Board. “Global warming is already here”. The Washington Post, August 19, 2019 Monday. https://advance-lexis-com.central.ezproxy.cuny.edu/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5WVG-1XR1-JBFW-C01F-00000-00&context=1516831. Accessed September 13, 2019.

Blogs. “10 billion tons of meltwater poured off of Greenland in a day – but are things as bad as the twittersphere says?”. Discover Magazine, August 1, 2019 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/2019/08/01/10-billion-tons-of-meltwater-pours-off-greenland-in-a-day-but-are-things-as-bad-as-the-twittersphere-says/#.XXvXdShKjIU

News. “Trump onclimate change report: ‘I don’t believe it’”. BBC, November 26, 2018 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46351940

Agarwal, A, and Narain, S. Global warming in an unequal world: a case of environmental colonialism. India: N. p., 1991. Web.