Blog Post # 3

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/opinion/24sun1.html

“The case for a climate bill” was an editorial published in The New York Times on January 23, 2010. The main claim of this editorial is to make people realize the importance of passing this bill. The editor looks at all the angles and eventually concludes that this bill will help the country and the world in the long run. One of the main reasons that he uses is the fact that the bill will produce more job opportunities. The editor supports this by providing different scenarios that must be fulfilled for this to work. He uses an outer reliable source such as “Congressional Budget Office” to back up and support his reason.

The editor also uses the acknowledgment and response rhetorical strategy. He effectively realizes and acknowledges the fact that this bill only has a slight chance of passing through the house and senate. Although he recognizes the opposite’s views, he gives his views to counter argue. The main audience in this editorial would be the people interested in global warming and politicians of the United States. He has to persuade the Senators and the House of Representatives that this bill would work and cure global warming. The occasion of this editorial was to let the public know about the bill that is being passed could effectively hurt or help the economy. Although there are many doubters and nonbelievers, he does his best to provide reasons and evidence to support his claim.

The author also uses Aristototle’s three rhetorical appeals. An example of him using logos would be when he is talking about how the bill “would create more jobs than it cost”. He uses evidence to support this by using ethos. He refers to President Obama and how he could help pass this bill. “President Obama can start to prove the conventional wisdom wrong by making a full-throated case for a climate bill in his State of the Union speech this week.” The last rhetorical appeal, logos, is crucial to help passing this bill. He talks about how limited our time is when it comes to fighting global warming. “The long-term trend in greenhouse gas emissions is up (the decade ending in 2009 was the warmest on record), and the sooner emissions decline, the better.” He appeals to the emotions here to make people realize the importance of this bill and how it can help prevent global warming.