Response essay to the MacLean's article from 2008

Hello Liberty,
I hope you are having a lovely day or night.

This was a well structured article. The way you separated the sections helped me follow along very easily. You touched base on a lot of different issues concerning climate change, I think you did really well with that. This is a very difficult and complex topic to approach, so kudos to you!


Sorry in advance for this section, it's very disjointed. I hope you are able to follow along XD

ideas and plants,

Just a small typo here. Plants should be plans.

The premier of British Columbia, Finlayson,

I don’t know where you got this information from, but Finlayson was on the Business Council of B.C. The premier at the time was Gordon Campbell and he was the one who implemented the Carbon Tax. Also I would suggest putting the time he was in office, because BC has a new premier now.

Who is Thomas Homer-Dixon? What does he do?

I think the last sections of your article could be enhanced with some additional research. How are different countries approaching these issues? What are the stats, (how much is the carbon tax, how much does clean energy cost.)

fresh vegetables and plants, that don not have a bad effect

Another small typo.

Another issue I think you should address is how is poverty affecting carbon emissions? How does this play into the overall equation?

global warming must end as soon as possible.

I just wanted to point out that global warming will always happen, it’s actually a very natural process that happens very slowly over the course of millions of years. The issue right now is that it’s happening very quickly, such that ecosystems around the world aren’t able to evolve to adapt to these changes.

Another thing I think could aid your article is making references to the original article. This adds context and helps the reader follow along.


Overall I enjoyed the article very much! There were a few inaccuracies in the article, also some additional research could’ve been used. Other than that, you did really well! I hope this review was helpful. Keep on writing and have a great rest of your day!
Stellarjay

Hi Liberty,

Mailice here with a short review!

First off, I try to review it in some sense of structure I guess, and give also my opinion in certain parts. My first impression is very curious and interesting to see where this leads. In some way it´s a mix between an article and an essay and I´m really intrigued by the structure.

So let´s begin. In terms of structure, I was a little surprised at the beginning that the summary is much larger than I had actually thought. It takes up about a third of the entire text and I think that for a topic like global warming you have kept it short and to the point. Above all, I think it's good that you write here as if your readers already had prior experience of global warming, and you got straight to the point. I think in many parts you made good arguments and presented them strongly, but at the same time (and this is just my impression), I had the feeling that the summary was not always written with a neutral touch. I think that belongs in the next parts rather than right here, because you are still trying to draw the reader's attention to some things in your summary.

I think your main part (up to Significant Improvements) has a good structure. (I'll add my pepper core here that I would have gone into the "Disagree" first, rather than the "Agree", but I guess that depends on one's perspective). Again, I like that you keep it short and sweet, but sometimes it's too short. I think in order to form an opinion, you need a better argument in some places, where you go into more detail about why. Here, for example:

There is not much that I do not agree with, but something from the article caught my eye: the ex-premier of British Columbia who started taxing carbon emissions. I do not support that. People do so many different things to get around taxes, and to steal gas. Putting extra money on something to stop it? I don’t think it is that simple.

First of all, here it says "ex-premier" where in the "summary" part it is premier. (Sorry for the nitpick.) Right here, I think you could write so much more than just a question at the end and then the answer so indirectly. I would expand on the fact that in some cases it would even be economically damaging for low-income earners, people who depend on it, etc.... Because I think you kind of got out of the way of your argument with this.

I really like your conclusion here and as mentioned twice before, it's short and to the point. You also incorporate your opinion here more effectively after we've read it before, giving the reader a good insight. I like how you have also described the issue of global warming from a larger point of view here, were you still a bit more focused on the USA / North America in the summary and then it developed there. Here you see an invisible thread that opens up with each new section and I thought that was well done for the final part.

Sorry for the next nitpick:

People have multiple ideas and plants, but there is not much hope because of economical, political, and environmental obstacles.

I guess here´s a tiny typo at “plants” but I still like that the sentence could also be read in this way.

I actually found the article very good. There were a few things here and there that I found a little less good, but I also go there more with one eye, as I learned at school/university, so what I wrote can also be total nonsense.

Have fun writing!

Mailice