Arguement112 =美丽G程小组=小组第一次作业 by zhang-yan09

zhang-yan09UID: 2704651

112.The following proposal was raised at a meeting of the Franklin City Council.
"Franklin Airport, which is on a bay, is notorious for flight delays. The airport management wants to build new runways to increase capacity but can only do so by filling in 900 acres of the bay. The Bay Coalition organization objects that filling in the bay will disrupt tidal patterns and harm wildlife. But the airport says that if it is permitted to build its new runways, it will fund the restoration of 1,000 acres of wetlands in areas of the bay that have previously been damaged by industrialization. This plan should be adopted, for it is necessary to reduce the flight delays, and the wetlands restoration part of the plan ensures that the bay's environment will actually be helped rather than hurt."

攻击点：
1.航班延误的原因不一定是跑道不足，可能是由于天气、管理等原因。
2.Reservation的计划没有敲定，仅仅是口头承诺，而且也没有承诺支持到什么程度。
3.即使机场方面会兑现诺言，环境未必就比原来好。

The argument asserts that flight delays can be solved by building new runways and the plan of filling in 900 acres of the bay and restoring 1000 acres of wetlands can actually help the bay’s environment. However, there could be several reasons for flight delays, and there’s little evidence that restoring 1000 acres of wetlands can benefit more to the environment than the hurt brought by filling in 900 acres of the bay.

First of all, the argument assumes that building new runways to increase capacity is a final solution to the flight delays. However, this is not necessarily so. As is said in the argument, Franklin Airport is on a bay, so the weather may be a primary reason for flight delays. Many bad weather conditions, such as fog, snow, typhoon and blizzard, can be great threats to planes. Usually, people will consider safety as the most important thing for a flight, so we often see flight delays caused by bad weather, no matter how much capacity an airport has. And it is more likely to encounter bad weather on a bay than on the inner land. Considering the location of Franklin Airport, there may be more delays caused by bad weather rather than the lack of capacity.

Even if the flight delays are not mainly caused by poor weather condition, there should be other alternatives to solve or at least relieve the problem resulted from low capacity. For example, better management can make the airport more effective, reducing the time for planes to take off or land, and thus increase the capacity of the airport. All efforts should be made to prevent the damage to environment.

If filling the bay to build new runways is the last resort, we should consider the consequents it will bring about. As is pointed out by The Bay Coalition organization, filling the bay will surely do much damage to environment and wildlife. Though the airport promises to fund the restoration of the damaged wetlands, but whether the wetlands will recover from the damage by industrialization is a question. The airport doesn’t promise the final effect of the plan. In fact, nature sometimes can hardly recover from the destructions done by human. Even if the environment can be restored, it will take great effort and enormous amount of time, which can’t measured merely by money. If the airport really wants to help to restore the damaged wetlands, it should give not only financial support but also labors, and it should submit a practical and detailed plan rather than an oral promise.

If the airport will fulfill its promise and the previously damaged wetlands will eventually recover from industrialization, does it mean that the entire bay’s environment will be helped rather than hurt? This argument makes an assumption that the help from the restoration of 1000 acres of wetlands can compensate the damage by filling in 900 acres of the bay. It simply judges the effect on environment by the size of wetlands, but there is no evidence that if the size of restored wetlands is bigger than size of damaged, the entire environment will actually be helped more than hurt. Perhaps the bay filled by the airport is near the entrance of the sea, and blocked most of food sources for creatures in the bay, then the food chain of this area is broken, and thus will threat all creatures in the bay. In such condition, it will bring about a totally disaster to the entire environment of the bay, which of course can not be compensated by the restoration of wetlands with larger size. Whether this plan will actually help depends on not the size of the bay filled and the size of wetlands they restore, but the influence brought about by the changes they make.

In sum, people should consider the potential damage before they adopt the plan, and the argument failed to do so. Moreover, the airport had better find other solutions to flight delays, rather than merely filling in the bay and build more runways.