Passage 1:
As I sit down to write this column, one thing keeps coming to me over and over: “Now is the time; now is the time.” In the New Testament the word used for this type of time is kairos. It means “right or opportune moment.” It is contrasted with chronos, or chronological time as measured in seconds, days, months, or years. In the New Testament kairos is usually associated with decisive action that brings about deliverance or salvation. The reason the phrase, “Now is the time” kept coming to me over and over is that I was thinking of how to describe our current climate change moment. The world has been plodding along in chronological time on the problem of climate change since around 1988. No more. Simply put: the problem of climate change has entered kairos time; its kairos moment has arrived. How long will it endure? Until the time of decisive action to bring about deliverance comes—or, more ominously, until the time when the opportunity for decisive action has passed us by. Which will we choose? Because we do have a choice.
Passage 2:
[Another action that Americans must take to combat global warming is to transition] to a clean energy economy in a just and equitable way. Global warming is among the greatest challenges of our time, but also presents extraordinary opportunities to harness home-grown clean energy sources and encourage technological innovation. These bold shifts toward a clean energy future can create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and generate billions of dollars in capital investment. But in order to maximize these benefits across all sectors of our society, comprehensive global warming legislation must auction emission allowances to polluters and use these public assets for public benefit programs. Such programs include financial assistance to help low and moderate-income consumers and workers offset higher energy costs as well as programs that assist with adaptation efforts in communities vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Revenue generated from emissions allowances should also aid the expansion of renewable and efficient energy technologies that quickly, cleanly, cheaply, and safely reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and curb global warming. Lastly, it is absolutely vital that comprehensive global warming legislation not preempt state authority to cut greenhouse gas emissions more aggressively than mandated by federal legislation.
In a well-developed paragraph of at least 150 words, incorporating and using in-text citations to document examples from our readings, respond to one of the questions below:
1. How do the strategies of persuasion differ in these two passages? Explain these differences in terms of targeted audience, original genre, writer’s purpose, and writer’s angle of vision.
2. How would you describe the writer’s style in each? What is the purpose of each, and how does the author achieve the aims of the argument?
3. How effective would either argument be for readers outside the intended audience? What changes would Reverend Ball’s argument require to be effective outside a Christian religious context? What information would help the Sierra Club’s argument work outside the context of an environmentalist group?