Global warming is a serious problem around the world. As critical as the problem seems, most people are aware of the melting crisis but do not do anything to ameliorate the problem. This picture which was used in a news article titled, “No Ice-cape for Polar Bears” was directed towards those ignorant people. The reporter of this article Jamie Pyatt first appeals to ethos by being the reporter of a UK news. She then maximizes pathos by describing the photograph as “A polar bear cub is comforted by its mother as they drift TWELVE MILES out from shore on a rapidly shrinking iceberg.” The picture of harmless and innocent polar bears is already unfortunate enough, but if the two polar bears are a mother and a child and if the mother looks like she is trying to protect her baby despite the situation, people will feel a stirring deep inside their heart. The baby polar bear also looks very intimidated, making people feel guilty. Also, Pyatt’s emphasis on distance by capitalizing “twelve miles” inflate the vulnerability of innocuous polar bears. Pyatt wants people to see that their danger is caused by humans not by themselves. The surroundings of the polar bears are also interesting to see. In the ocean, the only thing floating around is the broken ice with polar bears. The isolation of the bears shown in the photo symbolizes how no one, even the people who are aware of the gravity of global warming, is willing to do anything to change the situation. At the end of the description, Pyatt does mention that “amazingly experts said the pair probably made it safely back to the shore”, but she puts it at the end to make the photograph stronger and thus prevent people from feeling less guilty.
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