ARGUMENT112 [Victors小组]7月11日作业 by jennetrj

jennetrjUID: 2275453

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."
WORDS: 476          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2007-7-11

In this argument, the author recommends the Franklin City Council to approve the plan of building new runways by filling the bay for Franklin Airport. To justify this recommendation, the author claims that the new runways would increase the capacity of the airport. Moreover, the author cites the promise that the airport made to restore the damaged wetlands of the bay as a compensation. However, close scrutiny reveals several flaws in it.

To begin with, the author unfairly assumes that lacking of runways should be responsible for the notorious flight delays in Franklin Airport. However, no evidences provided in the passage support it. It is totally possible that the ephemeral climate conditions contributed to the flight delays, or maybe the occasionally appeared fog interfered the regular flight schedules. Or the notorious delays attribute to the poor air-controlling in the area, so that fewer flights could take off or landing on time. Without eliminate or even consider such possibilities, the author could not convince me to accept the assumption that there was the need for more runways in Franklin Airport.

Granted that there should be more runways available in the airport, the author fails to prove that filling the bay was the only strategy. Maybe some un-occupied lands were available at another side of the airport, or perhaps there's the possibility to re-arrange the runways so as to increase the runway capacities. Either scenario, if true, would serve to undermine author's allegation to filling the bay as a way out for more runways.

Furthermore, the feasibility of the restoration part of the plan still remains to be a question. Maybe filling the bay would cost the airport too much so there could be the financial problems for the airport, which makes it dispensed or even canceled. Or the airport will be able to support the wetlands restoration work, commonsense informs us that environmental destruction is always a one-way path that not every maneuver could be effective to really restore the natural balance. Author's failure to consider this renders the recommendation based on it highly suspect.

Finally, the author only mentions the advantages the plan would bring about but overlooks potential disadvantages. For instance, the construction work might increase the residents’ financial burden and increase the government budget deficit. Or the construction would cause other environmental problems, like water pollution, interference of normal life in the region. Until the author completes the analysis, the recommendation could not be taken seriously.

In sum, the argument is groundless as it stands. To consolidate it, the author should eliminate other relating factors and establish the causal relationship between the notorious flight delays and the problems concerning about runways. In addition, the author should provide more evidences to show that the airport would absolutely carry out the compensation part of the plan and whether it could be effective to reverse the damage. To better assess the argument, we need to know if there would be other disadvantages after approving the plan.