Argument141 [Jet小组] 第十四次作业

滴滴雨儿UID: 2392741

题目：ARGUMENT141 - The following appeared in a newsletter distributed at a recent political rally.

"Over the past year, the Consolidated Copper Company (CCC) has purchased over one million square miles of land in the tropical nation of West Fredonia. Mining copper on this land will inevitably result in pollution and environmental disaster, since West Fredonia is home to several endangered animal species. But such disaster can be prevented if consumers simply refuse to purchase products that are made with CCC's copper until the company abandons its mining plans."

The author contends that consumers simply refuse to purchase products made with Consolidated Copper Company (CCC)'s copper can make the company abandon its mining plan on West Fredonia. Though the purpose of protecting environment in West Fredonia is fine, the author draws his or her conclusion hastily without necessary evidence and therefore lacks of credibility.

As a threshold matter, there's no evidence showed in the argument that mining copper on this land will inevitably result in pollution and environmental disaster. The author fails to provide information about how CCC mines copper and where the copper mine locates. If the copper mine locates far away from the home of those endangered animal species, then mining copper may not influence their lives. Even if the copper mine is quite near those animals’ homes, the argument doesn’t tell us whether copper mining will certainly cause pollution, say, water pollution, air pollution, or chemical pollution. Thus we can still not jump to the conclusion that mining copper will cause pollution which is harmful to those animals. To make it more convincing, the author need to give more evidence about the cause-and-effect relation ship between mining copper and polluting home of endangered animal species.

Besides, even if it has been confirmed that mining copper will do harm to the environment, asking consumers simply refuse to purchase products is not a good idea. If CCC's mining copper on the land of West Fredonia does cause pollution and environmental disaster, consumers reaction will be too late to save the land. Such as common sense, it can only be known when the products of CCC has been put onto shelves that few would like to buy their products do the chief of CCC think about abandon producing this kind of product. And this producing and refusing procedure usually takes a long time that land of West Fredonia probably has been already polluted. In order to prevent such situation, an only asking consumer to refuse buying such products is not enough. Certain policies from the local government or urging CCC to take measures to prevent the pollution may be more helpful and efficient.

Furthermore, even every job discussed above has been done, there is still no evidence showed that CCC will abandon its mining plans. CCC copper products may be materials for some other companies thus ultimately related with their profits. Simply asking consumers not buying their products may still not cut CCC’s market share and may not make it abandon copper mining plan.  

To sum up, the author need provide more information about the procedure of copper mining of CCC and whether it will cause pollution. After all, simply asking consumers to refuse purchasing copper products from CCC without necessary reasons is too weak to make a difference.