Hooking The Audience

Image #1: Key and Fork
Title: Bias Simplicity: What the Humane Society is Really Trying to Say
Where: Washington Post Editorial Section
Tone: satirical/ironic/attacking the fallacies of the ad

When you first open up the webpage for the Humane Society, there is a large picture of two dogs - a black labrador and a yellow labrador - romping around in a field of buttercups. The caption reads: "Celebrating animals, confronting cruelty."
Now, looking at the ad speaking out against global warming, I notice that the ad is endorsed by the Humane Society. Now, I can't help but wonder if the ad is really about global warming at all. In fact, according to Environmentaldefense.org, U.S. autos emit more than 333 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, more than one-fifth of the nation's total carbon dioxide emissions." So if cars contribute more than one fifth of the nation's total carbon dioxide emissions, what contributes to the other four fifths? Well, the Mairan Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences at koshland-science-museum.org says "industry, residential, commercial, and agriculture." However, with a closer look at the website, it ranks these causes of global warming in order from most imoact to least impact - I am not surprised that industry is listed first and agriculture, last. It is clear that the 'fork and key' ad is using global warming as a cover-up. The Humane Society is just trying to hook yet another audience. They've already got animal-lovers on their side, now they want the global warming activists.


Image #2: The Earth's Greenhouse Effect
Title: The Science Behind Global Warming
Where: Vanity Fair (front page, of course!)
Tone: scholarly/logo-driven/trying to prove a point/convince an audience

When you hear the words: global warming, I'm sure you think of just that: the earth becoming hotter. But how, exactly, does that happen? Well, there's a whole science behind the so-called theory of global warming, so I suggest you start believing.
The greenhouse effect. Yes, it sounds like a rather silly name for something that seems so complex. But that's just it, the concept of global warming is really not that complicated at all. Basically, before there were 6.6 billion people on this planet, before there could be any life on this planet, certain things were needed. And among oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen was the right temperature. Venus and Mercury are too hot for life - similarly, Saturn or Neptune are too cold for life. But Earth, Earth was just right. The Earth had developed a natural process of warming. Carbon dioxide and other gases, like the ones I mentioned a moment ago, are always present in the atmosphere. These gases allowed for a warming effect that can be compared to that of a greenhouse. The sun brings heat into the atmosphere, most of which is absorbed by land or water. Some of the rest stays in the atmosphere and some goes back out into space.
What's happening now, with global warming, is more of an amplified greenhouse effect. Humans are increasing the amount of greenhouse gases (or gases that were always there naturally) in the atmosphere, so more heat than before is able to be trapped by these gases, remain within the atmosphere, and thus warming the Earth.

Image # 3: Shark Lunch
Title: Impact of Change and Sea Level Rise
Where: Time Magazine or pamphlets being passed out at an environmental event
Tone: scholarly/logos-driven/trying to convince an audience

This comic may have made you laugh, but let's face it, the effects of global warming are no laughing matter. Among the obvious rise in temperature, increase in tropical storms and pollution, global warming is also starting to amplify its effects in the oceans and underwater communities. Seven tenths of the Earth's surface is covered in water, so it makes sense that the oceans house the majority of animal life. Think about the coral reefs; those are places that have some of the highest biodiversity in the world. To scientists, these are like gold mines.
But, due to global warming, more and more marine species are becoming closer and closer and closer to extinction. Many fish and marine mammals require certain key environmental factors in order to live. Polar bears, for example, have thick fur to keep them warm, they thrive in the icy climates of the North and South Poles, and they feed on sea lions. With the oceans temperatures changing, sea lions are migrating and ice caps are melting. The polar bear poluation is at risk.
What's even worse, every species on this planet is tied together in an aintricate web of producers and consumers. The whole process of life will be disrupted if one species is removed. Think of it as a domino effect: if one falls, the rest will soon follow.
According to conservation.org, global warming is not the only impact humans are making on Earth's oceans: "The amount of marine life we extract to feed ourselves is astronomical, and some of our fishing methods – dynamite fishing, bottom trawling, cyanide fishing, and other techniques – cause great damage to current and future fish stocks and to the underwater world in which they thrive. Today, 90 percent of the oceans’ top predators are gone. Entire populations of fish, and the communities and economies they support, have collapsed. Seafloors look like war zones. Corals have been bleached white from chemical runoff. Dead zones – vast swaths of ocean that can no longer support life – are spreading throughout the marine realm."
We really can make a difference, as long as we understand what we are doing wrong and take the initiative to fix the problems we've caused.