Climate change affects and will affect people, the environment, and nature. For people, there will be water shortages which would make it harder to produce food, and there will be an increase in heatwaves, downpours, and storms. The temperature rising is causing an increase in death from heart and lung disease in older people and there is a formation of ground-level ozone that affects lung health. (Aldridge) For the environment, there is a lot of ice melting such as polar ice and glaciers, which will cause low-lying coastal areas to be flooded. There has been an increase in floods, droughts, monsoons, and hurricanes, and every year these disasters claimed more than 60,000 lives. A major issue is flooding as more than fifty percent of the world’s population live 60 kilometers from the sea. With this, there will be many major cities that are at risk of floods or sea-level rise. There is also permafrost that is being melted which is causing methane to be released. Agriculture and oil and gas drilling also add to the release of methane, which is a gas that is more powerful than carbon dioxide at holding in heat. (The Economist) Nature is affected in the sense that species will have to move to new locations, and they have a likelier chance of going extinct. Throughout this paper, there will be a rhetorical analysis of multiple different sources on the issue of climate change and global warming.  

The first source that will be analyzed is “Climate Change: Health Impacts” which is an article by Susan Aldridge published by Gale in 2018 that talks about possible health issues for humans that can arise from climate change. It goes in-depth into the different effects that the increased temperature is causing on people’s health. In this, she says that “there are many policies, and many options for individual choices, that could reduce, but likely not stop, climate change.”

The purpose of this article was to inform people about the risk that climate change and global warming poses to the very way that we live life. It points out the effects that it has on our health and our cities if we don’t start altering the way we live now. Susan’s stance on climate change is that it is an issue that will never cease to exist but we can prevent it from letting it majorly affect our homes and health. This is seen when she said that we can reduce but not stop climate change. This is backed up by her evidence towards the actions of the World Health Assembly, and what they could accomplish in the future. The genre of this article is an informative scholarly source.  This being a scholarly source is clear by this article being published by Gale and being from “Gale Essential Overviews: Scholarly.” The article breaks down what is talked about into different sections, with an introduction, a breakdown of the topics at hand, and ends with a conclusion that breaks down the future implications of the effects of climate change. From this information, the intended audience is students and other scholars looking to further their information on climate change. The exigence of this article was to show what would happen if we don’t fight climate change, then provide what would happen if we do. 

What we need to fight is talked about in “It is not all about the CO{-2}; Climate change”, an article by The Economist that is published by the Economist Intelligence Unit magazine on Aug. 14, 2021. What is talked about is how CO2 should not be the only thing that we worry about when it comes to climate change. The article made it clear that another thing that we have to worry about is methane, and sulfate aerosols, which are tiny particles produced by the combustion of coal and some sort of oil. The author of this claims that eliminating emissions would be hard, but quite steep reductions are entirely possible. The author states that methane is currently the easiest one to combat, so it should get priority over the combat of carbon dioxide for now. 

The purpose of this article is to give information on the other gases besides carbon dioxide that also affects the earth’s climate and our health. The Economist’s stance on the problem of climate change is that it is a serious issue that needs to be looked at from a broader scope than just that carbon dioxide is the sole cause for it. This is clear with the final sentence of the article being that “Methane should be given priority on the agenda at the COP26 climate summit this November.” The genre is an informative, and persuasive magazine article. The article utilizes facts and past actions taken to make their opinion be known on what they think the proper action should be taken. The intended audience of this article is those that would choose to intake more didactic and authoritative content, as this is what they stated as their consumers’ interest. This is clear by the article’s use of facts, from other reliable sources such as the IPCC, which helped them come to their conclusion. The exigence of this article was a direct response to conclusions made by the IPCC, with The Economist providing their own opinion on what actions need to be taken on the issue of climate change. 

What happens if no actions are taken is clear in an article called “A Hotter Future Is Now Inevitable, A U.N. Report Says” written by Brad Plumer and Henry Fountain on August 9th, 2021  that was published by The New York Times. This article is about how the nations of the world need to all work together now on stopping pollution because they avoided acting sooner the temperature rising over the next thirty years is inevitable. If they don’t then the sea levels will keep rising, and the rate at which wildfires occur will keep increasing. The article then provides what promises and pledges have been made by the largest countries, such as the U.S and China. 

The purpose of the article was to provide information on what the temperatures are heading, and what actions need to be carried out by the governments of the world. The writer’s stance is that the issue of climate change is very serious and they make it clear that major governments of the world need to start limiting mass pollution of CO2. The genre of the article is an informative newspaper article. This is seen as it is published by The New York Times, and the article went about stating facts on what is going to happen, what already happened, and what needs to happen. The most intended audience of this article is an urban audience under 49 as that is the audience of The New York Times. This audience most likely is not kept up on the moves being made by governments to combat this issue and on the issue of climate change in general. This is clear by the brief history provided on what has been done by the governments and what is promised to be done, and on the history of climate change and what is to come if no actions are taken. The exigence of this article was the lack of knowledge on the urgent issue that due to new scientific reports that find some of the future impacts of global warming are now unavoidable. 

While the last article talked about what the governments of the world should do, the next article speaks on what regular citizens should do to enact change. On July 17, 2017, Melissa Denchak wrote an article for the Natural Resources Defense Council called “How You Can Stop Global Warming.” In this article, the author gives twelve different ways that we can help combat climate change. All of these different ways are all things that the average American can do. Plenty of the reasons is for us to do things that involve cutting down on our use of things like electricity and other things that produce a large amount of CO2. In this, she also gave things to do like speaking up about this issue such as social media to voice our concerns and take them to our elected officials. 

The purpose of this article is to give relatively easy ways that we can cut down on carbon emission which helps with the issue of global warming and climate change. From the whole point of this article, Melissa’s stance on climate change and global warming is that we should all together work on stopping the negative effects that excess carbon dioxide has on the planet. The genre of this article is a list article. This is clear by the list present that gives brief details for each point. The most likely intended audience of this article is a person searching the web for ways to help with the issue of global warming. The exigence of this article is climate change which is constantly getting worse but can be bettered through our actions. 

To wrap up, all of the articles above had similarities and differences when it came to rhetorical situations and detail. The authors of all of the articles are writing for large publications that will reach a wide audience, with all of them pointing to scientific information on the rise of global temperatures that are bound to occur. The purpose of all of the articles is very similar in the sense that they all aim to inform the reader on separate issues relating to climate change through articles three and four dive deeper into the actions that need to be taken by the citizens and governments of the world. The stance of all the authors is similar as they all feel that this is a very serious issue that has us under a strict time constraint. The audience of the article does differ though as all of the publications have different demographics, such as Gale being a source for students and scholars, while the other three articles being for a wider audience with The New York Times and The Economist being paid subscriptions for the public.  The reason for the similarities though is that all of the articles chosen were to inform about the severity of climate change and the time constraint that is ever-present with the issue of climate change. In the end, it is a hope that this is what this paper was able to convey. 

 

Works Cited

Aldridge, Susan. “Climate Change: Health Impacts.” Gale Essential Overviews: Scholarly, Gale, 2018. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/DUTHSZ246119593/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=656e3b11. Accessed 1 Oct. 2021.

 

Denchak, Melissa. “How You Can Stop Global Warming.” NRDC, 17 July 2017, 

www.nrdc.org/stories/how-you-can-stop-global-warming. Accessed 1 Oct. 2021

 

Plumer, Brad, and Henry Fountain. “A Hotter Future Is Now Inevitable, A U.N. Report Says.” New York Times, 9 Aug. 2021, p. A1(L). Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A671205800/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=9187c4fc. Accessed 1 Oct. 2021.

“It is not all about the CO{-2}; Climate change.” The Economist, 14 Aug. 2021, p. 12(US). Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A671782715/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=d5132320. Accessed 1 Oct. 2021.