Global Warming and Eating: Linking with Language Tools

An article published by Jennifer Wilkins and Anna Lappe addressed the link between global warming and the way Americans eat today. To make their point the authors use several language tools that invoke sympathy for the planet and arouse a desire to eat better in order to save it.

Personification was well implemented in this article to give our planet an identity. Word usage such as, "The danger the planet faces..."(par. 2) and "...we'll all be healthier and so will our planet"(par. 16). The planet obviously is not able to literally "face" anything, but by implying that the Earth is going up against something or seeing some kind of opposition causes us to naturally feel sympathetic. The Earth, though treacherous in things such as natural disasters, is often seen as an unarmed, helpless woman that can't defend herself from those who pollute and damage her. The second sentence helps us identify that our actions will help protect the Earth, and this will not only make our motherly-benefactor healthier, but we will be better off as well.

Metaphors with imagery also helped make the point of needed opposition towards global warming through eating healthier. The phrase, "...driving an 18-wheeler to the moon and back 13 times"(par. 5), was used to describe how far New Jersians drive, burning fossil fuel and causing global warming, to satiate "fresh tomato carving[s]." Though completely illogical, driving to the moon in an 18-wheeler creates certain images and connections in the reader's brain: 18-wheelers require a lot of diesel fuel which creates extremely toxic fumes; the moon is extremely far away and driving there and back 13 times would amount to a large, almost incomprehensible distance. Therefore, it is understood that citizens of New Jersey drive significant distances, warming the globe, all because they want to eat fresh tomatos. Put in this light, the reader would see New Jersey's global warming participation as something ridiculous and easily avoidable.

More imagery was used in order to describe how much land is used to grow corn for corn-syrup that goes into highly consumed junk foods in relating the size of the fields to "twice the size of Rhode Island"(par. 13). Though Rhode Island is known as the smallest state in the U.S., saying that any amount of detrimentally-used land is larger than a state immedtiatly wows the reader and puts into persepective that the earth is being misused to feed us junk food.

Citation
Wilkins, Jennifer and Lappe, Anna. "Think Globally, Eat Locally," Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 17, 2007. Web, 23 Sept. 2009.