Ashley Stocker, Whittley Lewis,

Krystal Barber

English 335

Dr. Donnelly

19 April 2011

Group Textual Contribution

The Environmental Crisis

On February 24, 2011, Focus the Nation, a national organization, focused on the

environment crisis and alternative energy sources, held a forum at Ball State University.

Twenty seven speakers attended and presented information on a variety of energy topics.

Among those were John Motloch, who presented “Clean Energy, Economy, and Community

Change,” and Bob Koester who presented “Institutionalizing Sustainability.” In addition to these

two live presentations, our group will also focus on analyzing An Inconvenient Truth, presented

by former Vice President Al Gore. These presentations are just a piece of the larger picture of

public discourse on the environmental crisis. Each of them presents ethos, pathos, and logos

during their lectures. Our group viewed all of the presentations and analyzed their rhetorical

appeals. Throughout our background research, we found that the media often criticizes people

who present on the environmental crisis for relying too heavily on appeals to pathos, concluding

that they lack credibility. The presentations we found; however, seem to be very credible.

Although they use instances of pathos and ethos to support their arguments, speakers about the

environment crisis rely mainly on appeals to logos to persuade audiences.

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First, we would like to address how different definitions of rhetoric play into the

presentations we viewed. There are several different definitions of rhetoric in play within our

examples. First, rhetoric can be defined as persuasion with pathos, where the goal is to persuade

and the main appeals are to emotions. Some examples of speakers operating on this definition

come from Motloch’s presentation in which he described our “destructive decisions” and

suggested that our “health and survival depends on” changing our behaviors. Here, Motloch is

trying to persuade the audience into new behaviors and does so by appealing to emotions by

using loaded words and phrases. Also, in Koester’s presentation, he repeated the term “self-

sustainable,” which is a feel good term. If we feel that our university is self sustainable, there is

a sense of pride that Ball State can make it on our own. There is also a sense of ownership for

the decisions being made because it is self-driven. In Koester’s example, he is persuading the

audience that Ball State’s actions toward ‘greening’ the campus are both positive and sufficient.

The other definition of rhetoric is persuasion with logos and pathos. Here, the speakers

still attempt to change the attitude of the audience, but do so relying on appeals to their own

credibility and the logic of their arguments. Both of these examples come from Koester’s

presentation. Koester attempts to bolster Ball State’s ethos by citing all of the commitments Ball

State administration has signed (such as the American Colleges and Universities Presidents’

Climate Commitment ACUPCC, and the Talloires Declaration). The idea is that if the university

has signed agreements with other large organizations, that the university must be a trustworthy

authority. If the university is a trustworthy authority, the audience should have more reason to

listen and agree. A second example using Koester’s speech is when he lays out the logic behind

Ball State’s decision making. He explains that the geothermal project is not only

environmentally friendly, but switching to geothermal provides an “eight percent return on

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investment” which is a lot better than most banks. Koester outlines the finances of the decision

and shows why moving toward greener energy is a logical choice for Ball State and should be a

logical choice for other universities. In both examples, Koester is trying to persuade the

audience that other universities should follow Ball State’s lead because Ball State has good

credibility and because it makes logical sense to do so.

There is also an understood meaning of public sphere in these examples of public

discourse. For the live presentations that were given as part of the Focus the Nation program, the

public sphere was comprised of students, faculty, and community members who were already

interested in the university and already agreed that action should be taken to be more green.

Because this is how the speakers understood their audience, there was little to no time spent on

persuading why this is an important topic. For An Inconvenient Truth, the public sphere is much

broader. For one thing, the movie format allows it to reach larger audiences. Also, Gore’s

message is more tailored to an audience that does not already agree with him. He spends much

more time convincing us why climate change is an issue (showing pictures of melted glaciers,

graphics of drowning polar bears, and digital simulations of large coastal cities going under

water).

When researching the public discourse surrounding the Environmental Crisis it is

important to gather from many different types of media, including in-person presentations.

Keeping this in mind our group decided to attend a “Focus on the Nation” event that hosted

speakers, from many different universities. Every presentation was environmentally biased. John

Motloch, a professor of Landscape Architecture at Ball Sate University, gave in intriguing

presentation about “Clean Energy, Economy, and Community Change” that two of our group

members were able to attend.

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During Professor Motloch’s presentation he used a power point to present his

information. He used pictures of old buildings, factories, new “green” buildings, and the

rainforest. Along with those pictures were some lines of text and a few charts and graphs. His

discourse focused mainly on our economy, how it is an old economy, and how we must move

into a new economy of self-sustainability. He used the pictures as visual rhetoric to further

explain what he meant by “old economy” and “new economy”. It was obvious that he wanted to

get his audience to make the connection of dirty air, death, and pollution with the “old economy”

and life, growth, and health with the “new economy”.

Throughout Motloch’s presentation, our members noticed reoccurring word choices and

phrases such as “partnering with the earth”, “natural systems versus human systems”, “clean

energy”, “sustainability”, “destructive decisions”, “carbon footprint “emissions”, “regenerative”

etc. Some of the rhetoric, that stuck out to our group members, we analyzed as scare tactics and a

bit sensationalist.

Two phrases that we found to be particularly dramatic were “We must ‘give back’, we

must be Earth’s partner, we must do that to have a future!” and “We can no longer afford to

make destructive decisions!” Both of these phrases refer to our future well-being and call to

attention the actions or decisions we have been making that, in Professor Motloch’s opinion, we

must change. These phrases and the dramatic way in which they were exclaimed really come

across to the audience as dire warnings and predictions of impending doom. They really play on

the audiences emotions and self-preservation instincts, which causes us to ponder are these

honest exclamations biased in truth or are these scare tactics to get us to change our behavior but

are not truthful.

This examination of Professor Motloch’s rhetoric and the other discourse surrounding our

topic caused us to call into question what we deemed a reliable source of truthful information.

We realized much of the discourse on and about the environmental crisis is all too often biased in
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pathos and begs an emotional response of the audience. And where the discourse presents logos

there is missing evidence and holes that can be poked in the arguments. We found it incredibly

significant that most of the discourse is biased in pathos and not logos.

Herrick identifies several issues of rhetoric and each of these can be applied to the public

discourse on the environment. Herrick’s issues are rhetoric and power, rhetoric and truth,

rhetoric and ethics, rhetoric and audience, and rhetoric and society. For the purposes of this

paper, we will focus on power, truth, and society.

First, rhetoric and power has to do with the way in which rhetoric determines distribution

of power among people. In addition, power determines who is allowed to use rhetoric for

persuasion. These two ideas work in tandem. As an illustration of rhetoric and power, the Ball

State presentation “Institutionalizing Sustainability” was presented by a professor. He was

allowed to make the presentation to students and other faculty because he had a position of

power. Ball State was allowed to host the Focus the Nation summit because the university has

gained a position of power among universities. Ball State got power by building ethos among

the environmentally conscious community, and built that ethos by creating the Green Initiative

Award and Exemplar Award and receiving the Technology Innovation of the Year Award and

joining the Global Reporter’s Project, National Wildlife Foundation, and American Colleges and

Universities President’s Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). A second illustration comes from An

Inconvenient Truth, where Gore (who has power because he was a former presidential candidate)

argues for a new distribution of power in which climate scientists are granted more credibility

with the public.

Herrick’s next issue is rhetoric and truth. Particularly in the case of An Inconvenient

Truth, rhetoric about the environment tends to encourage a new conception of the truth. Even
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though Gore has science to support his claims, there will always be an audience member who

doubt his facts. Many people in the audience will say that correlation does not mean causation

and therefore we should not believe what Gore is telling us. The focus of An Inconvenient Truth

is not just to present scientific evidence and personal anecdotes, but to actually persuade the

audience that global warming due to human actions is real. Even mathematical and scientific

evidence must be supported with persuasive rhetoric in order for it to be accepted as new truth.

With “Institutionalizing Sustainability,” Koester had to convince the audience of a new

perspective of truth which puts green energy as an economically sound decision, not just a moral

one.

Finally, Herrick’s issue of rhetoric and society is important to the discussion of the

environment crisis. Each of these presentations has to do with inspiring change within society.

No matter the means of appeal, all three speakers are trying to persuade audiences that global

warming is real and there are things we can and should do to slow it down. The key word there

is we. All of the changes presented must take place on a community level in order for them to

have an impact. In Motloch’s “Clean Energy Economy and Community Change” presentation;

he is urging people to work together as a small part of society in order to create community

change. In Koester’s Institutionalizing Sustainability, he is urging universities to follow suit

with Ball State and create a change toward green behaviors among the society of university

administrations from around the world. Finally, in Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth(italicized?), he

is urging the American people as a whole to create change in the way America operates. For

each of these examples, rhetoric is the vehicle for organizing people within a community and

inspiring them to create change.

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We found examples of auditory and visual rhetoric in these presentations. In some cases,

switching from spoken to visual rhetoric can change the dynamic of the message.

Instead of handing out flyers, e-mails, or writing a book I believe Mr. Gore chose the best

option to present his material and that was giving a presentation. He traveled around the world

speaking and presenting his global warming material. When the material is presented by an

actual person, face to face, along with visual I think it makes the presentation more personal, and

people can connect with the issues and material better. Also because this was Al Gore “The

former Vice President of the United States” I think it gives him credibility being in politics, and

being mildly famous for such makes people want to listen to him more, and actually care what he

is saying. If it were let us say Whittley, Ashley, or even myself that were traveling and

presenting the exact same material and presenting on global warming we wouldn’t get nearly as

many people to hear us out as Al Gore does. We aren’t famous or popular therefore we have no

credibility and people do not care. Another thing Mr. Gore has going for him are his personal

stories of his family throughout his presentation. The stories about his son, sister, and himself

evoke ethos and pathos within us, people not only are listening to him for him being Al Gore but

because now he is relatable they are paying even more attention to what he is saying.

In addition to spoken rhetoric, An Inconvenient Truth, with Al Gore, uses copious amount

of visuals to reiterate his points on global warming. The beginning of the documentary starts out

showing us the pristine, rivers, mountains, and other various scenery around our planet Earth, Al

Gore is showing us the beauty around us. Gore wants us to be appreciative of what we have. He

then shifts gears and shows us several short clips of factories with smoke billowing from the

stacks, and natural disasters such as mud slides, and floods. He even shows a clip from the

popular cartoon Futurama poking fun at the global warming issue, he uses this visual to show us
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that many people have the mindset that global warming is not all that serious, and that showing it

in a cartoon in a lighthearted way somehow lessens the blow. He shows us a short animated clip

of a polar bear swimming around in the ocean looking for ice, the polar bear tries to climb on a

small piece but it breaks apart when he tries to climb on it. This clip evokes pathos, and tugs at

our heart strings, as he speaks of how many polar bears have drowned looking for ice. He also

uses many, charts, graphs, and other various animations to support his global warming claims

which I will talk about in the next paragraph. The visuals he provides not only makes his speech

more interesting, but also showing these things appeals to out ethos, logos, and pathos, and he

knows how to use them in the correct way to evoke all of these things within us.

Mr. Gore has also analyzed extensive amounts of scientific data to show us in his

presentation. He uses charts, graphs, and maps to illustrate to us that he knows what he is talking

about, and he uses logic to get us to buy into what he’s talking about. He is very logical in his

presentation when presenting us with facts such as the rise in temperature over the past some odd

years, and how it will continue to climb in the coming years because of global warming. He

shows us maps of Greenland and how over the years the ice will continue to melt, and ice

shelves will continue to melt off and increase the sea level at an alarming rate, he also evokes

pathos when he shows us the maps, he scares us by implying millions of people could potentially

die if the sea level rises by 20 feet. Combined with his speech, pictures, and other various visuals

Mr. Gore makes a melting pot of global warming facts and information that he spoon feeds us

and we inevitably buy into it because of his excellent rhetoric and presenting skills.

Visual and auditory rhetorical appeals cannot stand alone, and in fact they work together

in combination. Working with each other, pictures augment the spoken in Motloch’s

presentation. For example, Motloch explains the new relationships that should develop in the
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new economy. During the explanation of old economy, Motloch shows images of old

architecture and smoke stacks next to images of the polluted White River. During the

explanation of new economy, he shows pictures of ‘green’ architecture juxtaposed with pictures

of the rainforest. Here, the visual argument is that old architecture was polluting the

environment and not healthy for the planet but that new types of architecture are eco-friendly and

can exist harmoniously with nature.

When the visual and spoken forms of rhetoric combine, it provides visual context for the

real life, concrete examples of what is being discussed. Pictures also augment spoken with

visual representations of data.

In some instances, logos is augmented by pathos. For example, Gore uses graphics to

support his data in several instances. There is one graphic depicting flood patterns in the

northeastern United States. Gore points out that in this graphic, Ground Zero from September

11th would be under water. This is a loaded appeal to pathos and an allusion to recent American

history that is still unfolding. Some may say that this is gratuitous emotional reference.

However, one can also argue that Gore uses emotional appeals such as this to keep the attention

of his audience. In another graphic, a polar bear is shown swimming alone in the Arctic. The

bear tries to climb up onto an ice flow, which only breaks and the bear is again left swimming

alone. The appeal to pathos comes in the implication that the bear will die because all the ice is

melting and he has nowhere to go. However, that graphic is only shown after Gore appeals to

logos and explains the data on increasing temperatures and disintegrating icebergs. In this case,

the polar bear is used as a specific example to illustrate what kind of impacts this temperature

data could have.

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After examining these presentations and taking into account all of the different tactics

they employ, there is one main question we would still like to address: can you have an effective

argument using only logos or only pathos? Aristotle would argue that one must have a balance

of appeals to all three; ethos, logos, and pathos in order to be effective, but that logos is the most

important. Our group would have to agree with Aristotle and point out that these presentations

each attempt to balance their appeals. It is important to strike a balance because if a speaker

were only to rely on logos, he or she would lose the attention of his or her audience. Much like

Postman’s argument about a TV nation, our current digital nation needs entertaining fluff to keep

us interested and give us a reason to get involved.

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Works Cited

An Inconvenient Truth. By Al A. Gore. Perf. Mr. Al Gore. Paramount Classics, 2006. DVD.

Koester, Bob. "Institutionalizing Sustainability." Focus the Nation. Ball State University,
Muncie. 24 Feb. 2011. Lecture.

Motloch, John. "Clean Energy, Economy, & Community Change." Focus the Nation. Ball State
University, Muncie. 24 Feb. 2011. Lecture.