ARGU 7 -B1-嵩嵩@3.2

cousonUID: 2389644

早期写的ARGU, 但是纯粹为了完整论述这道题, 所以写的过长了, 时间也超了, 我自己改过, 希望你们读起来不会觉得辛苦...嘿嘿

TOPIC: ARGUMENT7 - The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Clearview newspaper.

"In the next mayoral election, residents of Clearview should vote for Ann Green, who is a member of the Good Earth Coalition, rather than for Frank Braun, a member of the Clearview town council, because the current members are not protecting our environment. For example, during the past year the number of factories in Clearview has doubled, air pollution levels have increased, and the local hospital has treated 25 percent more patients with respiratory illnesses. If we elect Ann Green, the environmental problems in Clearview will certainly be solved."
WORDS: 486
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE: 2011/1/16 0:43:56
Actual time and words 70 minutes and 733words

In this argument, the author rules out a proposal of voting for Ann Green in the next mayoral election, because the author asserts that Ann Green, a member of Good Earth Coalition (GEC), will address the environmental problems of Clearview. The author, however, fails to present a throughout reasoning that Ann Green not Frank Braun, a member of town council, is the better choice.
At the beginning, the author gives some evidence that Clearview is now encountering air pollution. However, these evidence lie with fallacies that might weaken the argument. First, the author says that the number of factories have doubled during last year, and air pollution becomes severe; but says nothing about what kind of these new factories. There could some high-tech factories making circuit chips or bio-tech firms doing scientific researches, which have zero gas-waste emission. The author then tells that air pollution levels have increased, but tells nothing about the scale and duration. What if air pollution levels just run up a little because of the monsoon has brought dust from a neighbor and upwind-positioned city? Furthermore, the author cites the fact that more patients attend to local hospital with respiratory illnesses, but illustrates no substantial causes of respiratory illnesses. Maybe flu strikes Clearview's residents and makes more people suffer respiratory illnesses than usual. Considering the fallacies in evidence provided by the author, it's difficult to convince us that Clearview is suffering air pollution.
Granted that Clearview encounters air pollution presently, it does not prove that the council pays no attention to environmental problems while the GEC do. There could be other environmental problems like water pollution or trash disposal, which is in more emergent situation that council has to address right before air pollution. For example, the river running across Clearview has been heavy polluted by chemical factories’ water-waste emissions and emits stinky smells. The river now provides no qualified running water for residents' daily life. And the council is carrying on a project of limiting sewage emissions into river and purifying the water. Or perhaps, the resident's has generated too much garbage that exceeds the limit of trash-treatment plant. The exceeding garbage now piles up in town everywhere. And the council is working on applying new technology on garbage treatment, which is more effective and environmental. Otherwise, is the GEC taking any realistic actions on solving environmental problems? I could have believed that council has done more efforts than the GEC on that, however, the pity is that the author renders no data.
Even if the present council ignores Clearview's environmental problems, it is unnecessary to inform us the future council would do the same way. They might shift their concentration from other areas to environmental problems, since more and more voters acquire environmental problems should be seriously concerned. Besides, political are on behalf of residents’ willingness, so they might have involved environmental improvement plans in agenda. It might be addressed in the coming election campaign activities. On the other hand, the author brings no information on the GEC's future plan. Thus we are allowed to assume as we do with the council, which means every minute, the GEC could change their political direction every minute from environmental concentrating to other.
Last and most important, we should find out what people in Cleatview require and what these candidates will and able to offer. The author assumes environmental problems are the only problems Clearview and its residents are facing. In fact, more problems might ahead. There are plenty of cases to illustrate this point, cases such as the economic comes to a stasis and thousand people lose their jobs. The public education resource mismatch the demand of residents and many children can't get enrollment in school. These issues are more exigent, more substantial and more eager to be solved, which means they are closer to actual demands of residents. Of course, the candidates should have presented they are apt to solve these problems and satisfy these demands. Thus we need to check out the candidates' resume and find out if they have dealing with social problems or issues remarkably. Afterward we can have a result of competition of who are qualified to mayor position.
In conclusion, we can’t vote hastily by judging superficial situations. Knowing what we need and what the next mayor can and eager to contribute is the insurance of residence benefit in the next few years.