TOW #21: The New Abolitionism by Christopher Hayes (written, non-fiction text)

The Civil War was a war not only of slavery, but of economy. By this, it means for Southern states, their loss would mean the loss of approximately 10 trillion dollars as they would lose their main work force, slaves. Hayes compares the modern issues of eliminating fossil fuels for the environment as those of slavery during the times of civil war at an economic level. Hayes asserts that the public would simply not risk ten trillion dollars just for the environment. Ultimately, Hayes is advocating for the stop of fossil fuel drilling, and he does it with uses of logos and by responding to possible counter arguments. He first uses logos to state that unlike slavery, which had some benefits for the economy as there was no input for the amount of labor they received, fossil fuels actually cost money as it is difficult to drill underground. He also addresses to investors to stop the investing for fossil fuels that investors “have reason to be suspicious of the fossil fuel companies. Right now, they are seeing their investment dollars diverted from paying dividends to doing something downright insane: searching for new reserves. Globally, the industry spends $1.8 billion a day on exploration” (Hayes, 50). Hayes explains how this is a waste of investment for investors as there is only limited supply of fossil fuels and the companies are only spending the investment on looking for new reserves. Hayes responds to possible counter argument that it is outrageous to compare anything to slavery by commenting “It is almost always foolish to compare a modern political issue to slavery... Humans are humans; molecules are molecules” (Hayes, 12). He adds that he is merely comparing the economy behind each issue. His argument was different from other environmental articles in that he did not purely argue for the environment and how fossil fuels can endanger the future Earth and how our next generations would not have a place to live as other nature advocates stress in their writings. He tried to make supporters of fossil fuels realize that the investment that they put in is actually a waste for them. He took a different direction in that he focused on what the supporters of fossil fuel actually care about: money. However, this could also have been his weakness. He did not put in any pathos, which could have weakened his argument towards the general public. But since his main audience was the investors, his argument was very effective.