Friday, October 30, 2015

Analyzing Context

In preparation for Project 3, I have identified different perspectives of my of my issue and have answered the questions on page 340 of Writing Public Lives.


Haar, Kate Ter. "Examining Clouds".  April 12, 2012 via flickr.
Attribution 2.0 Generic License
1. What are the key perspectives or schools of thought on the debate that you are studying?
  • Geoengineering, specifically sulfuric aerosol injecting (SAI), will greatly help to combat anthropogenic climate change.
  • Geoengineering, specifically sulfuric aerosol injecting, will do nothing but worsen the already negative impacts anthropogenic climate change has had.

2. What are the major points of contention or major disagreements among these perspectives?
  • Geoengineering (SAI) is the cheapest and quickest way to combat climate change. Even though it may be cheap and quick, the potential risks aren't worth it and time would be better spent investing time and money into other geoengineering methods.

3. What are possible points of agreement, or the possible common ground between these perspectives?
  • Climate change has definitely reached a turning point. If it isn't properly addressed soon, by the year 2050 the world will have reached a catastrophic point that it is no longer able to recover from.

4. What are the ideological differences, if any, between the perspectives?
  • Both groups have the same ideological beliefs. The only difference is how they wish to combat climate change. Those who support aerosol injecting don't actually wish to address the source of the problem.

5. What specific actions do their perspectives or texts ask them to take?
  • Pro-SAI: Support the concept of aerosol injecting. Totally ignore the central cause of the problems and provide us with funding.
  • Anti-SAI: Take a stand against those who support aerosol injecting. These methods do not address the root of the problem and only attempt to cover it up.

6. What perspectives are useful in supporting your own arguments about this issue? Why did you choose these?
  • Anti-SAI individuals. After all of the research I have completed and all of the beliefs I previously had, I most agree with those that are against geoengineering. Much like them, I believe climate change should be dealt with in a more natural manner, aiming to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Aerosol injecting does not follow this belief and therefore I am against it.

7. What perspectives do you think will be the greatest threat to your argument? Why so?
  • There are no significant threats, but if I had to choose one I guess it would be those who support aerosol injecting. Climate change is a very pressing issue that needs to be addressed soon. SAI would help the issue quickly, but it also has many risks. SAI is also the cheapest method out of any of the currently proposed methods.

Reflection:
For this reflection I read through the posts of Andrea and Sam. Once again Andrea and I have chosen to focus on the same issue. All of our responses were essentially the same even though we have slightly different viewpoints. I feel like I will be able to support my viewpoint more strongly because I have chosen one side of the debate to focus on. Sam also appears to have a very strong opinion on the issue at hand. Having an established opinion will certainly make it easier to contribute to the debate.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Chelsea! I agree with you that climate change should be done in a natural way, and that it needs to be done soon. The injections seem to have too many factors that could effect the environment in a negative way. I can't wait to read your argument! Good job!

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  2. I agree that the cheapest method is definitely not always the best option. Especially in this case when it is an international scale treatment. The one area I think you could focus on a bit more is the the last question about possible threats to your argument. Those that don't believe climate change is worth addressing, those that don't believe any funding should be applied to climate change, and any individuals with politically charged climate change beliefs are likely to be a threat. Climate change is a pretty chaotic subject that has found plenty of enemies over the years, so I think threats are a good thing to talk about.

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