My essay would be issued in the Washington Post, specifically under the Environment and Energy section.
I chose “Obama to make decision on controversial oil pipeline” because oil is the current leading energy source for America. In the article, Obama is faced with the decision to approve or deny a permit to build a 1,700 mile pipeline for oil in Canada. The author herself doesn’t say he should or shouldn’t, but rather she expresses both sides of the argument, looking at the issue from the outside in.
On the economic side of things, labor issues believe that by building a pipeline, it would create thousands of jobs for those unemployed. They believe that we could be helping our economy while at the same time, lowering America’s reliance on other countries for oil. Obama also believes that America needs to have energy security, and that we should not rely on the Middle East so heavily. On the other side, this will increasingly raise global warming and speed up the process of our diminishing atmosphere. Obama is stuck in the middle as far as helping the economy, verses helping the environment. This is a State Department issue, but there has been a conflict of interest with subjecting environmental scrutiny. Therefore, ultimately, Obama will make the final decision.
The writer uses a lot of direct quotes about the issue, developing both sides. Since she was introducing an argument rather than arguing herself, I plan to take a little bit of a different approach. I am going to focus more on the arguments for one side, then add information about the other side in the rebuttal paragraph. I don't want to give too much information about the opposition because I believe that that would weaken my argument.
This article was balanced on both sides of this controversial issue. She organized it by introducing the issue, then going into each stance. She starts with brief background, and then goes into Obama’s personal opinion on the issue. She states why he makes the final decision over the State Legislature. Going into the issue at state, she gives valuable quotes from both sides. Tiernan Sittenfeld, who is a vice president of government affairs, says that the “pipeline would be [bad] for our energy future.” This is solely due to the increasing carbon omissions to the atmosphere. On the other hand, she gives a statement from Sabrina Fang, who is a spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute, saying that “the president has been talking about creating jobs. This is a way to do that.” By having both viewpoints of this controversial topic, the readers can see the argument as a whole, and then make a decision on how they feel about the issue based on the given information. I am going to take a different approach for my essay. I will be persuading readers to get on my side, rather than letting them pick a side themselves.
Personally, I am on the environmental side, seeing that my essay is about alternative sources of energy since the carbon emissions are harming the o-zone layer in the atmosphere.
I liked the author’s use of quotes, and how she was able to back up her statements about the issue through legitimate sources. I am planning on incorporating statements from researchers, politicians, and scientists to further prove the points I will be making. I think that this makes my argument stronger and more believable if there is substance from a reliable source.
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