Standardization of “Warmists are holding us to mad ‘greenmail’”
Conclusion: Developed nations should not pay any money to poor countries to help them low-emissions and climate-resistant pathways
There is no consensus on the causes of climate change
Greenies are willing to ignore Nobel Laureates to achieve their goal
Robert Laughlin, a scholar and physicist says that no human activity could harm the planet and politicians insist that climate change is man-made
[Premise 1.1 and 1.2 linked]
Every nation including the less developed ones contribute to global warning
Some of the poor nations asking for funds from developed ones have massive carbon footprints
Carbon footprint measures an individual’s or nation’s contribution to global warming
[Premise 2.1 and 2.2 linked]
Paying the money might lead to economic collapse
The primary goal of the proposal is to destroy the capitalism economic model
Capitalism has been the dominant economic development model since Industrial Revolution
[Premise 3.1 and 3.2 linked]
The solution was proposed by politicians
Politicians see taxation as the only solution for all problems
Politicians still blame global warming for various issues despite the fact that there has not been warming for the past 18 years
[Premise 4.1 and 4.2 linked]
[Premises 1-4 convergent]
Analysis of Rhetoric and Arguments made in the Article
The first rhetoric the writer uses is describing the notion by poor countries that the money will help in controlling the temperature of the planet as preposterous and impossible. The writer adds that most issues claimed by the self-anointed, self-righteous, self-important lackeys of the United Nations to be caused by global warming have not been proven. The writer says that the true cause of the climate-fad is tax hungry politicians who disregard even Nobel-winning physicist like Robert Laughlin to advance their agenda. The politicians see taxation as the only solution to all problems facing developing nations. The writer further adds that the real aim of the greenies is to eliminate capitalism that they see as the real enemy of the planet. The writer concludes by saying that continuing supporting the greenies demands would waste billions of dollars that the fragile economy cannot take and thus would cripple the economy.
In the first paragraph of the article, the writer uses a conditional argument by saying that the poor nations claim that given enough of our money, they could control the temperature of the plant. The writer goes on ahead to state that controlling the temperature of the planet is impossible thereby making the entire claim false. The writer also uses generalization in saying that it is up to people to decide what to do with their money but no one should expect handouts from other people. The writer use of the argument style is also seen when the writer states that the entertaining the greedy greenies demands would lead to economic crisis. Analogical arguments are also seen all over the article. The writer compares the fraud planned by the opportunistic nations to the Y2K bug that was said would do all sort of crazy things including crashing the internet. The writer also draws a similarity between the amount asked by the nation to people collecting unemployment benefits complaining of not getting enough effort free money. Finally, the writer compares the goal of the United Nations of changing the capitalist economic model that has been reigning for over a century to madness.
A few fallacies are also seen in the text as the writer tries to support the claims. China, which the writer regards to as one of the opportunistic nations is said to be the country with the most billionaires in the world. On the contrary, the United States is the country with the most billionaires in the world followed by China (DeSantis, 2016). The writer also claims that the capitalism has uplifted billions of people from poverty. Although the statement might be true, capitalism has also condemned more than half of the world’s population to poverty (Horner, 2016). This is because capitalism is based on three elements; price, capital accumulation, and competition. This means that for every winner there must be a loser hence the effects. The final fallacy in the article is that the writer assumes that the American people in thinking that climate change is not caused by human activity know more than the Australian politicians. Human activities like burning fossil fuels build up carbon dioxide in the air enough to raise the temperatures and modify the weather of the planet (Laughlin, 2015).
The writer does a good job of using China that has the second most number of billionaires as an example of an opportunistic country. The writer also says states that the head of the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change had admitted before the conference that her goal was to change the economic model of the world. Finally, the writer says that politicians are the ones behind the agenda and see the taxation as the only solution. Although there is no evidence of this inference, it is plausible because most politicians are known to only care about their causes. This makes the article very convincing with the power to sway anyone into supporting the writer’s claim.
The writer uses strong rhetoric to support the claim in the article. The writer also uses other argument types like analogies to compare different situations in the article with situations that might be more familiar with the readers. This makes the article very good with the ability to achieve its objective that is depicting poor countries as opportunistic who will find any reason to haggle money from developed nations.
Bibliography
DeSantis, N. (2016) Forbes billionaires list map: 2016 billionaire population by country. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickdesantis/2016/03/01/forbes-billionaires-list-map-2016-billionaire-population-by-country/#614b949730af (Accessed: 30 May 2016).
Horner, C. (2016) Why capitalism is the #1 cause of poverty. Available at: http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/06/09/why-capitalism-is-the-1-cause-of-poverty/ (Accessed: 30 May 2016).
Laughlin, R.B. (2015) The American scholar: What the earth knows - Robert B. Laughlin. Available at: https://theamericanscholar.org/what-the-earth-knows/#.V0t9ZPl97IW (Accessed: 30 May 2016).
