Merrilee Viguers: Rhetorical Analysis: Climate Wars and Climate Peace

Merrilee Viguers

Effective Writing Fall

Sept. 5, 2013

Rhetorical Analysis: Climate Wars and Climate Peace

Author: Vandana Shiva was born in Uttarakhand, India back in 1952. Both her mother and father instilled her with a deep love of nature as a young child and as an adult she continued to have a burning love for the environment. In addition she also followed in her parents’ footsteps by strongly supporting a peaceful man known as Mahatma Gandhi. She studied at University of Western Ontario and got her PhD in nuclear physics. Shiva is known for being a fantastic author, feminist, and environmentalist. Some even call her a “one-woman movement for peace, sustainability and social justice” (Vandana, 2010). She expresses her environmentalist views into her 20+ novels like Making Peace with the Earth or Staying Alive.   She has received many awards like the Right Livelihood Award; which is seen as the Alternative Nobel Prize.

Title: Making Peace with the Earth: “Climate Wars and Climate Peace”
Date of publication: 2013

Publisher/Distributer: Pluto Press (London) & Fernwood Publishing (Canada).

Tone/Syntax/Language: The tone of this chapter is very informative and straight forward. At no point does the author try to incorporate style, voice, or humor into this portion of her novel; which in my opinion made it very bland and boring to read. Granted she is targeting a specific audience so as an informative piece she gets many facts and points across that prove her point on how global warming is detrimental for the environment. Shiva states how global warming isn’t just melting snow and glaciers, but rather she depicts the bigger picture of how the water levels are beginning to rise leading to “widespread flooding, but over time…there will be drought in the summer” (pg.104, Shiva). The chapter also features many statistic and factual based evidence that enforce her opinion.

Intended Audience: Her intended audience seems to be a couple of different groups. First there are the uninformed readers; the ones who know nothing about the topic but still have the capabilities to get involved and fight for her cause. She is also targeting corporate companies, mainly ones that use up natural resources or ones that produce harmful chemicals byproducts. In the chapter Shiva also talks about targeting “consumers of the North” who “bear responsibility for the increased emissions” (pg.101, Shiva). So by targeting this group she is making people from middle class northern societies realize how climate change is their fault too.

Context: “Climate Wars and Climate Peace” is mainly about how climate change is occurring but we aren’t doing anything about it! Shiva talks about how big government organizations say they are trying to help but really they aren’t making any great successes. Then she goes on to prove many commonly known assumptions false. She is using her facts and evidence to relay the actual truth about what is occurring around the world, pertaining to global warming aftermaths. For example she highlights on explaining how the lesser known Himalayan glaciers are heaping havoc on Asia’s giant rivers, causing them to flood and wash out civilians.

Purpose: To get the lesser known information out there. Dr. Shiva is featuring many studies and tons of data in this chapter to inform her readers and increase their knowledge of the topic. She wants to illustrate how fast and dangerous climate change is and how if we don’t stop things will be a lot worse, possibly irreversible. I feel the main idea in this chapter is that “climate change today is global in cause and global in effect” (pg101, Shiva). Here Dr. Shiva is explaining how it’s not just one area being effected or just a single area causing all the pollutants; it’s a global occurrence! Climate change is happening everywhere and it’s because pollutants are being created all over the globe. Therefore, in order to stop it there needs to be unity among the countries to keep the Earth Clean.  

Author’s purpose: Dr. Shiva’s goal from this chapter was to provide her reader with crisp evidence and support that climate change is happening and that we need to put an end to it. She laid out all the facts and even descript the harsh reality that could succumb the glaciers future. By featuring this chapter in the novel Dr. Shiva provides plenty of irrefutable evidence that a change is occurring and more needs to be done in order to save our sacred environment.  

"Vandana Shiva." - The Green Interview. Ed. Silver Donald Cameron. Paper Tiger Enterprises Ltd, 2010. Web. 05 Sept. 2013.< http://www.thegreeninterview.com/vandana-shiva-bio>.

Shiva, Vandana. Making Peace with the Earth. London: Pluto, 2013. Print

"News from the Advisory Board: Vandana Shiva." Barcelona Consensus RSS. N.p., 12 Aug. 2012. Web. 06 Sept. 2013. <http://barcelonaconsensus.org/2012/08/noticies-del-consell-assessor-vandana-shiva/?lang=en>.