Background
The article overleaf was part of a booklet which came with a newspaper, and provided readers with information about key scientific issues facing the world today. The passage is headed ‘Climate Change: The Facts’, and focuses on global warming as the main cause of this.
Understanding the text
First of all it is important to understand what the purpose of the text is and who it is written for. The writer, Kate Ravilious, intends to inform the reader about the facts of global warming and to explain what global warming is, what it may cause and how badly the Earth may be affected.
The audience for this is the newspaper reader or anyone who is interested enough in the topic to read about it, …show more content…
Plot + Pharagraph by Pharagraph
In 'Climate Change: The facts', it is apparent that the author manages to raise awareness of the scale of the problem as well as setting a limit to the level of pessimism
The author started his piece of writing by the introduction, "Twenty years ago global warming was a fringe subject...To day global warming has become a political hot potato..." . It can be seen that this is an example of metaphore. It compares the awareness of people at the same time.
This creates a powerful effect where the author stated that "There is little doubt that humanity is responsible for the rapid rise in carbon dioxide levels...", It delivers a message of blame and responsibility to the reader for not taking notice and act on the problem during the time had.
Notice how the author compares the scale of the same problem at different times by using figures of speech to convey the reader how serious the problem has become.
In addition, pronoun is used, 'It seemed absurd that we could be having an effect on the Earth's climate'. Author is trying to involve and aware the reader and implying that they and the reader are in the same …show more content…
The recurring noun which involves us all is again in use, 'Over the past 200 years mankind has increased the proportion of greenhouse gasses...', Other than relating the reader to the topic, the author also mentioned how long ago it was when the subject of the issue started developing itself, deteriorating and implying that we might not be able to solve the problem.
The balance in the tone to avoid being overly pessimistic is also included, 'Since 1958 scientists at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii have taken continuous measurements of the atmospheric carbon dioxide. The levels go up and down with the seasons, but overall they demonstrate a relentless rise.' The sentence which indicates that the levels of Carbon Dioxide is unstable is positive and balances the facts, but after that the writer comes back to his position and declares that there is a 'relentless rise' , being more pessimistic. The point is accentuated by an emotive language which involves the reader in feeling that it can't be stopped