Kristof & Chrichton

Kristof "War & Wisdom"

Kristof's article was about how we should not go to war with Iraq because it will end up costing way too much money and will ultimately lead to many unnecessary deaths. I found there to be around four main claims in his piece. We should not invade Iraq because our money should be spent on more important things such as education, environmental issues, etc. The threat from nukes is way too serious for us to be invading, and therefore we should be finding alternatives to war. War is super pricey and will cost too much in money and lives that it is not worth it. And lastly in the beginning of his article he shares how many key military authorities are strong believers that war is not what we should be doing at the moment. Kristof uses Hitler as an analogy to prove how certain people are evil. He also uses a lot of historical examples and facts to make his writing more credible. For example in the first paragraph he talks about different generals and their opinions on the issue. And the last strategy he used was rhetorical questioning in order to get his audiences brains going. I thought his article was very strong. He supported all of his evidence and made good points. His use of strategies was very well organized and successful.

Michael Crichton, Excerpt from Intelligence Squared Debate

Crichton believes that humans are the reason for global warming. However although there is strong evidence that shows humans are the reason from greenhouse gases, it is possible that the few people who believe global warming is not caused from human emissions could potentially be right. His next claim states that people ultimately hypocrites because they talk about how humans are doing harm to the environment yet do nothing to help. He used his friends as an example by stating how they talk about how they want to help the universe and then go hop on their private jet to visit their second or third homes. There is no excuse as to why we should not stop decreasing our carbon and strive to increase hydrogen levels. I thought Chrichton's strategies were very strong as well. He was very opinionated and found a way through his writing to identify and connect with the reader. His language was informal at times which made it feel like he was conversing with you. Chricthton was also highly persuasive as well. He used a fare amount of rhetorical questions which made the reader start to think more. For example, "Is the globe warming? Yes. Is the greenhouse effect real? Yes. Do human beings in general effect the climate? Yes." Lastly I thought Chrichton had a very strong and powerful conclusion. He gave more simplistic examples about global warming that his audience could relate to instead of being very broad about global warming.