Reflection
I wrote this Op-Ed with the intention of raising awareness of the large and negative impact the animal industry has on the environment. The exigence of this paper is therefore the horrendous impact that the factory farming has on the environment. I want to stir my reader to reconsider and to see the factory farming industry with honest eyes. I want to feed them the facts that are distorted from the public eye so they can be empowered to make rational and ethical decisions related to their diet. I pitched this article to the New York Times under the assumption that my reader is the average, educated New Yorker, who seeks to be informed and aware. The Times reader is also typically pro-environment which is why I chose to argue vegetarianism from this perspective. Additionally, in the city, meat is something encountered too easily and far removed from the manufacturing processes. One doesn’t smell the neglected piles of manure, nor inhale their nitrogenous fumes. We don’t witness the slaughter, but we can purchase meat in any deli on any corner or from a street vendor. I want the to stop making mistakes with ease and blissful ignorance. I tried to give an overview of various ways in which the industry damages the atmosphere but because this is an op-ed I did not want to bombard my reader with too many facts and details. Instead, I included hyperlinks urging them to continue their research.
I staggered the images between the text to lend my reader moments to think and process. I chose pictures that related to the topics discussed by each paragraph. After discussing animal feed, I placed an image of pigs in a crowded pen shoving for food. When I discussed issues of waste disposal I brought in an image of liquified dung being disposed into a pond. The last image I chose is meant to be ironic showcasing that despite the large amount of land used by the industry it is still not enough. The message is that the earth simply cannot accommodate for the factory farming industry.
This essay is meant to be witty and sharp. It utilizes all three rhetorical strategies [pathos, ethos and logos]. I used ethos by bringing in quotes and hyperlinks from reputable sources, and providing visual evidence to complement the written facts. I used logos because this is a rational argument: the industry’s impact on the environment is so detrimental that does not make sense to support it. I employed pathos by humanizing the animals. I equated animal needs to human needs, subtly acquiring the reader’s empathy. I refer to the animals as commodities because that is how we treat them, in contrast this newly developed empathy. I wrote, “PETA even accuses” to show that the farmers are being assessed like criminals and should be. And opened the article with the phrase, “The meat industry is a villain relentlessly attacking the environment on multiple planes.”
Aside from being swayed that the industry is bad, I want the audience to realize the power of the individual in this war. The statistic of how much water is saved by vegans per year was particularly encouraging to me and I hope to have instilled at least a thread of that hope into my reader.
