Abigail Stephens

Mrs. Retana

English 1020

20 September 2019

Ad Analysis

Up to 7 billion trees are cut down each year. Many companies have made advertisements

about saving the trees and keeping our oxygen alive, but people do not want to listen. World

Wildlife is known for creating advertisements on saving our planet, and this particular

advertisement is made for showing people the dangers of cutting down trees. The more trees we

lose, the less oxygen we have to share, and we need oxygen to survive. Considering the fact that

trees are our connection to breathing, this advertisement shows trees in the shape of lungs. The

lungs do not only represent our need for oxygen, but other animals need oxygen to survive as

well. Taking away the trees on our planet would not only disrupt our lives, but also thousands of

species of animals. We can solve this issue by going completely paperless, using the technology

we have today to improve our chances of living on this Earth for many more years.

World Wildlife is known for their worldwide conservation attempts to save the

environment. According to their website, threats to the world’s forests are growing. Expanding

agriculture, due to an increased population and shifts in diet, is responsible for most of the

world’s deforestation. Illegal and unsustainable logging, usually resulting from the demand for

cheap wood and paper, is responsible for most of the degradation of the world’s forests—the

largest threat to the world’s forests. Logging is the process of cutting down trees and preparing

them for timber.

 Every year, Americans use more than 90 million short tons of paper and paperboard.

That’s an average of 700 pounds of paper products per person each year. Every year in America,

more than 2 billion books, 350 million magazines, and 24 billion newspapers are published.

Unfortunately, only half of that paper used is recycled. According to waste-free mail, “Just by

recycling 500 hundred phone books, we could save between 17 and 31 trees, 7,000 gallons of

water, 463 gallons of oil, 587 pounds of air pollution, 3.06 cubic yards of landfill space and

4,077 kilowatt hours of energy”. With the technology we have today, the entire nation could go

completely paperless. If you needed to write notes for class, you could type them on your

computer, or even on your phone. If you needed to fill out documents, you can virtually sign

them, which is just as accurate as signing a piece of paper. There are hundreds of ways to switch

from paper to technology, but people aren’t taking advantage of these opportunities.

When a human takes a breath, they breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide,

and for a tree, it’s the opposite. Trees thrive on carbon dioxide, which is dangerous for humans to

breathe too much of. Therefore, the less trees there are, the more carbon dioxide is in the air.

Too much carbon dioxide in the air could potentially wipe out every human and animal on this

planet. Forest trees and other plants soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it

away as they grow and thrive. Tropical forests alone hold more than 210 gigatons of carbon,

seven times the amount emitted each year by human activities.

Eighty percent of the world’s known terrestrial plant and animal species can be found in

forests, and tropical rainforests are home to more species than any other terrestrial habitat. A

square kilometer of forest may be home to more than 1,000 species. Deforestation can disrupt the

lives of local communities, sometimes with devastating consequences. Forests provide a vast

array of resources to all of us, including food, wood, medicine, fresh water, and the air we
breathe. Without the trees, the ecosystem that supports the human population can fall apart.

World Wildlife seeks to close the gap between how much is available for forest conservation and

how much is needed. Forests will not survive unless the responsible management of them

becomes the norm. That requires eliminating illegal and unsustainable logging. To do so, World

Wildlife works to strengthen the US government’s ability to prosecute illegal timber cases; stop

illegal logging in countries that export high volumes of timber; ensure full implementation of the

Lacey Act, a US law that prohibits illegal timber and timber products from entering the US

market; and design rural energy programs that rely on fuels other than firewood.

In the advertisement in question, WWF is using all three rhetorical appeals to attract the

younger audience into helping save the trees. They use logos, which implements logic, to show

that we absolutely need trees to be able to breathe every day. We cannot just bottle up air and

blow it out of a machine in order to survive. They use pathos, which applies emotion, to pull on

peoples’ heart strings to see that we are killing our planet. With every tree that is cut down, the

Earth loses a little piece of itself. WWF wants people to see that trees are living too, and when

they are cut down, they are losing their life. Finally, WWF uses ethos, which appeals to ethics, to

show people that it is generally not right to cut down trees. They are truly the backbone of our

planet and without them, we wouldn’t be able to survive our day to day lives.

In conclusion, World Wildlife is doing everything they can to save our Earth. We are

taking advantage of the beautiful planet we walk on. We are abusing our only home. You could

live in hundreds of homes, but you can never replace our one true home, which is the Earth. The

more trees we lose, the less oxygen we have to share, and we need oxygen to survive. Taking

away the trees on our planet would not only disrupt our lives, but also thousands of species of
animals. We can solve this issue by going completely paperless, using the technology we have

today to improve our chances of living on this Earth for many more years.
 Work Cited

Cesareo, Kerry. “Forests.” WWF, World Wildlife Fund,

www.worldwildlife.org/initiatives/forests.

“Save Trees.” Green America, www.greenamerica.org/save-trees.

“Free Mail.” Waste, www.wastefreemail.com/faq.html.

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