argument163-[spring小组]第八次作业

luckimonkeyUID: 2408088

163Thefollowing is taken from the editorial section of the local newspaper inRockingham.
"In order to save a considerable amount of money, Rockingham's century-oldtown hall should be torn down and replaced by the larger and moreenergy-efficient building that some citizens have proposed. The old town hallis too small to comfortably accommodate the number of people who are employedby the town. In addition, it is very costly to heat the old hall in winter andcool it in summer. The new, larger building would be more energy efficient,costing less per square foot to heat and cool than the old hall. Furthermore,it would be possible to rent out some of the space in the new building, therebygenerating income for the town of Rockingham."
Words: 492  Time:30 minutes  Date:2007-12-16
  
In the argument, the advice of razing the old town hall and replace itby a larger and more energy-efficient building is aimed to save money andprovide enough space to accommodate the people employed by the town. To makethe advice reasonable, it claims that money will be saved by the decline of thecost of heat and cool process, and more money may be gained by renting out somespace. However, the advice fails to persuade me because it suffers from manylogical fallacies.
   First and for most, no information of thecost to set up a new larger building is provided. As is known to us all, thecost to set up such a large building with energy-efficient devices is ratherhigh, however, the advice are proposed to save money instead of spend more .Taking this into consideration, we can clearly see that the advice of razingthe old town hall and replacing it with a new one contradict its initiate goal.
  Secondly, although to cool and heat the newbuilding cost less than the old one per square foot, the space of the new oneis much larger than the old one, which possibly make the overall cost of theheat and cool process of the new building equates or even surpass that of theold one.
   Thirdly, no investigation is carried out toshow that the people will rent the extra space of the new building and how manypotential renters exist in the town. There is no guarantee that the money canbe made through renting the extra space.
   In addition, to torn down the old town hallis not the only way to solve the problem of high cost of the cool and heatprocess. A lot of factors may contribute to the high cost, like the old andpoor devices, and improper use. To solve the problem mentioned above, we canalso just facilitate the old town hall with advanced and high quality ofheating and cooling devices. Therefore, more resolutions needed to be proposedand analyzed on the purpose to find the most economical one.
   Finally, it fails to provide the influence accompanyingwith the razing of the old town hall. As it mentioned, the old town hall has a100 year history, it is possible that many visitors who come to the town areintrigued by the old building. In such a case, razing the old building may castnegative impacts on the tourism of the town, which cause sever damage of the town’seconomy.
   From all of the analysis above, it is clearthat the advice proposed in the newspaper begs question, for the arbitraryassumption of the income for renting, and weak proof that to set up a newbuilding do save money than it cost. Also, it fails to provide otheralternative resolution of the problem and fails to consider the impacts ofrazing the old town hall.