Gasland Rhetorical Analysis

Fox’s argument is effective, because he uses all forms of pathos, ethos, and logos, to clearly define that Natural Gas Companies are in the wrong and that the general public could be at risk in the imminent future. That being said, although the people with contaminated drinking water are the only ones being presently threatened, as more and more people sign off their land to be fracked, more and more people have their lands and livelihoods destroyed.
The audience isn’t just the people being terrorized, the problem is looming over everyone who has built a life near a body of water, and that effectively includes every single person. The rhetorical purpose is to inform everyone of this problem, and hopefully prevent people from letting the natural gas companies on their land. The ethos that Fox used was achieved by disclaiming in no way was he a professional, and that he essentially got dragged into this great problem and decided to investigate. The credibility was also achieved by tearing down the credibility of the natural gas companies.
They kept saying that the water was safe to drink and that nothing bad was happening, yet the water was discolored, full of odors, and had the ability to be lit on fire. Being able to see the water led the audience to believe that the companies were full of it. Weston Wilson, from the EPA, even expressed his dislike for what the EPA was doing, and having him validate it from the inside proved Fox’s point further. The logos included explaining the process of hydraulic fracking, which is where the companies blast chemicals and water into the earth to break it up, and it can also cause earthquakes in the process. When the companies tried to contribute that the fracking didn’t cause any environmental harm, it was quickly refuted by the various water samples that Fox got from the residents in the different areas affected. Water tests revealed that among harmful chemicals there was the