The two main purposes Linnea Saukko has in "How to Poison the Earth" are persuasive and referential aims. She uses examples classification and descriptions to help the reader better understand the future of the planet if humans keep on the same path of destruction.
The main modes she uses in the first paragraph are cause and effect, and later classification of pollution into ground water and air methods is used Saukko starts the essay off by saying, "Poisoning the earth can be difficult because the earth is always trying to cleanse and renew itself." She not only uses sarcasm to make reader think what she is saying is meant to taken literally, but she classifies the main methods to poison the earth. She stress the need for toxic chemicals like uranium-238, plutonium, PCB, and DDT. Along with the need to spread those chemicals around the earth, she starts to persuade the reader that if those two parts happen, we will poison the earth.
The next two paragraphs she emphasizes several ways to spread the toxins into the shell of the earth. She classifies those into deep-well and shallow-well injections, and dumping. The deep-well injections are to "ensure that the earth is poisoned all the way to the core," while the shallow-well injections are to contaminate groundwater aquifers. In paragraph two she gives the reader examples of deep-well and shallow-well injections and how these will ensure that the core is poisoned. The third paragraph ties to the second by explaining that if humans place dumps by groundwater that this method and shallow-well injections will poison the water. Saukko sarcastically states that since there are only 50,000 dumps in the United States," they should be located in areas where they will leak to the surrounding ground and surface water."
In paragraphs four, five, and six Saukko uses cause and effect to show how to bring pesticides and other poisons to lakes, rivers, and oceans. She explains that if