Rhetorical Analysis Of 'Tarmageddon' By Andrew Nikiforuk

Is Canada failing to be the innocent nation it is often portrayed as? Award winning journalist, Andrew Nikiforuk, wrote “Tarmageddon: Dirty oil is turning Canada into a corrupt petro-state”, published in CCPA Monitor in 2010. This environmental article set out to convince the general public that the tar sands are changing Canada for the worst. The article begins by explaining the different environmental effects that have been observed since the project started. With such detrimental results the article moves into what the politicians are doing to help the issue, which at this time was nothing. Lastly, the article goes over the economic aspect of the situation with the subject of temporary foreign workers. Andrew believes that the worlds largest

Andrew appears to prove that within his article. For starters he is a well known journalist focusing on environmental or oil issues. This information however is not stated within the article. Instead of using himself as ethos, he finds other sources that are well known. First he states “Nowadays, Canada is, as one Toronto Star columnist pointedly put it, ‘a nation that doesn’t say much, doesn’t do much, and doesn’t seem to stand for much.’” (188) This argument proves that he is not alone with this opinion, the well respected Toronto Star also agrees. Another example of ethos in his article is “the U.S. National Energy Technology Laboratory, for instance, recently calculated that jet fuel made from bitumen has a carbon footprint 244 per cent greater than fuel made from US domestic crude.” (188) Which brings into account a study that a well known laboratory has done to prove argument. Nikiforuk provides many references within his work to show his credibility and provide ethos. This however seems to be forgotten in a few of his examples where he does not cite where he received the information. This may cause him to lose some creditability with certain