Please write a reaction to “Ghosts of The Future” by Sarah Kaplan. Please discuss any quotes or language choices you find important or beautiful. What is her message? What parts of the essay create an emotional (pathos) impact on the reader? What parts convince her audience of the logic and soundness of her conclusions?  Who is her audience? Why is Kaplan qualified to make these arguments?

Sarah Kaplan audience is to everyone, to anyone who has an understanding of climate change, geologist and those who don’t. The argument of the story is to create a sense of awe for the planet we live on and the wonders it has, as well as a sense of urgency and understanding that a change needs to happen to save  and preserve the planet. The sense of awe and appreciation is created in the beginning, with Kaplan sharing her experience in Burgess Shale, with the fossils found and the history of the fossil. The description of the tectonic plates moving, and the movement of glacier across land paint visuals of climate changes that occur to create the world we know it as today. And the relics of previous organisms that existed before us, that the world holds a lot of unknown wonders. The sense of urgency and and emotional impact  is created with negative adjectives like, “Hyper alarming,” “catastrophic,” “losing, “big extinction,” and “price of our ignorance.” A quote that really stood out to me was, ” The price of our ignorance about life’s current diversity will be a duller, poorer future, because our inattention has led us to undetermined the conditions that make Earth’s extraordinary variety possible.” I think many of us take offense when we are called ignorant but at the same time it is an eye opening word that make us realize that we are neglecting and turning a blindside to important information.

Partial of Kaplan’s logic stems from her own credibility as a science report and her own experience at Burgess Shales, sharing the knowledge she learned and photos of the fossils she encountered. The other part of the logic and credibility display is the outer links attached throughout the article,  other information is cited and lead to other credible articles to back up her information. There was uses of statistic of greenhouse gas emissions to emphasis that climate change exist and there is proof and measurement. To add, references to actual events, the climate change summit, quoting U.N Secretary General Antonio Gutterres, someone who is a public figure and recognized as a credible. 

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