cmps27
Registered: August 2009
City/Town/Province: Spokane
Posts: 1
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Bottled Water’s Worldly Destruction: The Project to Turn Green, Not Red
Tim Radford, a scientific article writer states that “The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their fields - today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure” (Radford). This statement describes an ecologically unbalanced world, riddled with humans who test the limits of Earth’s stability. The world quivers under the stress people instill on the environment, which affects Earth’s inhabitants. Conflicts surface due to competition for depleting resources, our waste stretches the brims of landfills, crop yields decline due to the degraded environment, malnutrition and starvation ensue, and so on. Bottled water is an unnecessary stress to Earth as it contributes to each of these environmental degradations and provides no benefits over tap water, which is ecologically friendly. To advocate for the dire bottled water situation, I created a project with the aim of enlightening University of Washington students about bottled water’s environmental effects and ultimately leading to the decrease of its consumption. This project appeals to the audience through a poster displaying bottled water’s dramatic environmental effects and the high cost of the product over tap water. The poster appeals to pathos by describing that these ecological detriments also hurt one’s peers (and the rest of the world at that). In creating this project, many people have been enlightened of bottled water’s ecological detriments and therefore, possess knowledge to achieve greater environmental stability by preventing further consumption of bottled water.
The anti-bottled water poster appeals to the fiscal prudence of most college students, thus
dissuading the audience from buying bottled water. As many students have recently moved away from their parents and their parent’s wallets, college students value every dollar. The flyer consequently states that “TAP water is just as clean and healthy as bottled water… but it doesn’t cost a dime!” This demonstrates that drinking bottled water is unnecessary because the product has no greater benefit than tap water. Thus, the audience finds it unnecessary to draw from their meager funds in order to quench their thirst. Combined with common knowledge of bottled water’s price, informing students of the product’s lack of benefits causes some students to at least re-think buying bottled water. For instance, upon surveying members of the audience, a bottled water drinker said, “I’ve always figured that bottled water was just more healthy. I guess, if it’s the same as the tap then there’s no real point in buying it.” This statement demonstrates how the frugal audience may shift from paying to destroy the environment to saving both money and the planet. Clearly, by appealing to fiscally aware students through the unnecessary price of water, some people shift from consumers of bottled to tap water.
The poster also aims to change consumers of bottled water to tap water by appealing to the environmentally friendly University of Washington students. The student’s consciousness for the environment is apparent as National Geographic ranked Seattle as the 10th “greenest [U.S.] city” (Magnusson) and the Princeton Review ranked the University of Washington in the top 11th most environmentally friendly colleges in America (“Green Rating”). Contrarily, bottled water has numerous negative effects on the environment. The poster showcases these effects in order to appeal to the eco-friendly audience. This is done by placing bottled water’s ecological disasters in bold, brown (symbolic of the declining shape of our environment), and underlined font. As the audience skims the poster, the immense numbers, both in size of font and disastrous implications, jump off the page and pronounce the destruction that bottled water brings upon Earth. In turn, the green University of Washington students understand that the bottled water is not healthier than tap water, nor is it good for the environment. In fact, it becomes apparent that bottled water devastates our world. Surveys of the audience elicited comments such as, “Two billion tons? Wow!”, “The 17 million barrels of oil is surprising!”, and “I’m surprised that the numbers are that high!” Thus, it is evident that the facts stand out and shock the readers. In effect, the audience showed instant distaste in bottled water. For example, a University of Washington student answered the question, “Do these facts make you want to stop buying, or buy less bottled water?”, with “It does! It does! It really does! I didn’t know that it had this much effect of the environment.” The poster undoubtedly persuades many of its readers with surprising environmental facts, which in turn, pushes the audience away from consuming bottled water and closer to sustainability.
When the poster advocates sustainability, it not only appeals to the students by relaying surprising facts of bottled water’s ecological damage, but forces the readers to feel bad for buying bottled water. The anti-bottled water advertisement appeals to pathos by framing the bottled water consumer as the cause of environmental destruction. The poster’s initial statement says, “When you buy bottled water, you contribute to the 2 billion tons of waste...” thus, “you” shove aside bottled water as the single cause of ecological decay. “You” become the problem. Consequently, the target audience resents drinking bottled water and the damage they have caused. For example, a University of Washington student states, “it makes me feel bad knowing how wasteful drinking bottled water is” in response to the question, “What are your initial thoughts on the poster?” Appealing to pathos pushes many University of Washington students to feel shameful for buying the product and therefore, pushes the audience to second guess purchasing bottled water. Empathy is again evoked within the statement, “Don’t Spend Your Money To Destroy Our Environment!” The juxtaposition of “Your” to “Our” singles out the consumer against the human race, which emphasizes the fact that drinking bottled water hurts everyone. As the individual is isolated it becomes evident that one actually pays to kill Earth by purchasing bottled water. As a result, the audience feels guilty for paying to hurt themselves and their friends. By appealing to pathos, many University of Washington students realize that both bottled water and its consumer cause ecological and public degradation. Thus, appealing to pathos enlightens the audience about bottled water’s detriments to the environment and why one should not consume the product. This knowledge helps prevent further consumption of bottled water, which ultimately helps greater environmental stability.
The anti-bottled water project targets green University of Washington students through pathos of hurting others, highlighting the dramatic environmental effects of bottled water, and the cost to benefit ratio of the product. As a result, many audience members responded with emotions such as surprise, resentment, and distaste for bottled water. These emotions reflect an understanding that bottled water degrades the environment. This understanding proves that through the anti-bottled water poster many University of Washington students have been given knowledge to push the world towards greater sustainability. This is significant because the environment effects all inhabitants of the world and therefore, environmental destruction leads to conflict against those inhabitants. Production of bottled water wastes 17 million barrels of oil in the U.S. alone, which contributes to tension (and possibly war) over the valuable and diminishing resource (Arnold, “POVERTY”). When burning the wasted oil, production of bottled water emits over 4,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, a large contributor to Global Warming (Walsh). With Global Warming, crop yields decline and starvation and floods ensue (Leng). Consequently, the poster’s use of rhetoric to effectively bend its readers away from drinking bottled water is more significant than eliminating bottled water consumption to help the environment. By decreasing University of Washington student’s consumption of bottled water, a motion has been planted to achieve greater environmental stability, which leads to improved social and political well-being. This project is profound in that it not only advocates keeping our environment green, but indirectly calls for the prevention of painting our world red.
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