[try best]第一小组 7.4 Argument112

GG86_FlyUID: 2641450

OPIC: ARGUMENT112 - 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."

In this argument, the speaker suggests that the Franklin City Council should adopt the plan proposed by the airport. To support this suggestion, the speaker points out the fact that it is necessary to reduce the flight delays by building new runways. And the speaker also agrees with the plan that the airport funds the restoration of wetlands to help improve the bay's environment. However, carefully examine the speaker’s reasoning, we may find this argument contains several flaws, which render the speaker’s suggestion untenable.

First of all, there is no evidence to show that the flight delays of Franklin Airport are due to its insufficient capacity. Maybe the bad weather should be blamed for its flight delays. Or perhaps the management doesn’t arrange the flight time well. If the above scenarios are true, they will undermine the speaker’s assumption that the insufficient capacity is the reason for the flight delays.

Even if the current insufficient capacity is responsible for the flight delays, the airport management overlooks other plans to increase capacity rather than building new runways by filling in 900 acres of the bay. Without considering other possible ways, the speaker cannot justifiably think filling in 900 acres of the bay is the only way to achieve their goal.

Another problem is that the speaker unfairly assumes that the funds provided by the airport can effective in changing the damaged wetlands in the areas of the bay. The speaker doesn’t provide detailed information about how much money the airport will fund and how severe the wetlands have been damaged. If the funds are too small to improve the environment or the wetlands have been damaged too severely to be changed, the speaker cannot convince me that it is a wise decision to accept the airport’s plan.

Even if the environment of wetlands can be improved, the speaker cannot unjustifiably infer that the whole environment of the bay will improve. The speaker doesn’t take account of the consequences brought by filling the bay. Maybe the harm that disrupting tidal and harming wildlife outweighs the improvements made to wetlands. Even if they will improve the environment of wetlands, they cannot improve the whole environment of the bay.

To sum up, the speaker’s suggestion is untenable as it stands. To better support this argument, the speaker should provide more evidence to substantiate that the flight delays is due to the insufficient capacity and the only to solve it is to fill 900 acres of the bay. And the speaker should also convince me that the environment of the wetland can be changed better by the funds provided by the airport and this improvement will outweigh the damages brought by filling the bay. To better evaluate the suggestion, we should also know whether the whole environment of the bay will improve better consequently.