The Environmental Issue From Hell Rhetorical Analysis

Bill McKibben's "The Environmental Issue from Hell" argues that climate change is a real and dire concern for humanity. His essay deals with the methods and persuasive arguments needed to spur American citizens and the government on to change to more eco-friendly choices. The arguments he proposes are based largely upon emotional appeals calling for empathy and shame, and examples of what in our daily lives is adding to the changes we're seeing in the climate. To promote a viable campaign, the issue needs to be made real to your audience. McKibben expresses the difficulty in doing that for this issue, because carbon dioxide is insubstantial, direct effects are in gradual widespread changes that aren't easily noticed. He raises the point that the average American is so far detached that even the increasingly severe weather systems created by global warming wouldn't bother him, because he lives a life going from

McKibben points out that because of our foolhardiness, all future generations will look back at us, and see us as doing nothing to fix an obvious problem They will never forget our mistake, because we as a whole do nothing to fix. This McKibben feels is justified, because if a previous generation had done something on this scale, then we would look back and call them fools ourselves. McKibben symbolizes one of the causes of climate change in his essay as being the Sports Utility Vehicle. He posits that as time progresses our nations gas efficiency has actually been going down due to the change to these vehicles. His appeal, the fact that swapping to one of these gas-guzzling mammoths for a year is the equivalent of leaving your fridge open and running for six straight years. The legitimacy for the need of these cars he claims is invalid, the average American only needs to drive across streets, generally well maintained ones, not go off-road to reach their