Dorothy (Dori) Chaput

2/3/16
First Year Writing

Climate Change: Analyzing the Scientific Perspective vs. the Emotional Perspective

Climate change is a highly controversial topic because there are so many opinions and
contributing factors that cloud the reality of the situation. Most scientists who have studied our
impact on the environment can agree that this impact is negative. However, the debate remains
because the planet has experienced periods of extreme change that were entirely normal and
not a cause for concern. Piers Sellers, the author of Cancer and Climate Change (the article
being analyzed) and a climate scientist for NASA works off the assumption that the reader is
familiar with climate change as a concept and the various problems associated with it. Unlike
most discussions on this topic, the purpose of this article is not to convince the reader that
climate change is real. Rather, the author wants to discuss the debate that exists surrounding a
proposed plan of action for combating climate change. The author is deeply conflicted about
what should be done for the environment so our future generations will have a habitable planet,
so he wants to work through his internal conflict between abandoning his own life and carrying
on for the benefit of humankind in the future. Through analyzing this article, the reader learns
about an educated, individual climate change perspective as well as the general argument
surrounding this perspective, which allows the reader to interpret and make their own decision as
to whether or not climate change requires public action.

Sellers is writing this article for those who are in a similar position to his or an openminded position where they are receptive to a new point of view, and he is looking to discuss or
share his intermediate state with someone who can relate or simply listen. It is a safe assumption
that climate change skeptics are unlikely to read this article, which leaves only the people who
are interested in discussing the future wellbeing of our planet. This could be a wide range of
ages, races, gender identities, and so on but the majority of readers are probably US-born or have
been US citizens for most of their lives, making them privy to the US struggle with climate
change that the author is tacitly focusing on. He has traveled extensively and his research may be
global, but most of his professional research has been in the US and his audience for an op-ed
published in the New York Times is primarily US citizens, making this a more (but not
exclusively) US-centric analysis.

The call for this author to write about climate change in this particular article was his
cancer diagnosis and the new way it made him view his life. After dealing with the thought of
terminal cancer, the author inevitably had a new frame of mind when thinking about the future.
When the idea of his imminent death was brought to the forefront of his mind, Sellers had to
reconsider everything he dedicated his life to. This document is focused mainly on Sellers
working through the dichotomy between his desire to correct the environmental problems he has
spent so much of his life researching and attempting to solve and his curiosity as to whether all
the stress will have any real pay off, thanks to his newfound sense of mortality. He wants to share
his personal story because its a new view on a topic that is often spoken about in a strictly
factual way. This is not to say that he is the only writer who has ever discussed climate change in

a subjective manner or the only climate scientist to develop cancer, but he is one of the few to
juxtapose the two situations and publish his thoughts on the matter.

The question Sellers poses to the reader in the beginning of the article is the question he
attempts to answer in the rest of the article: Now that my personal horizon has been steeply
foreshortened, I was forced to decide how to spend my remaining time. Was continuing to think
about climate change worth the bother? (Sellers). Sellers question cannot be answered simply,
if it can be answered at all. His query is the thesis of the article and we can see how deeply
Sellers is affected by its presence in his subconscious. He wants the reader to understand how
deep this question goes (far beyond the average human scope) and encourage the reader to come
up with their own ideas on the future of climate change.

Throughout the article, Sellers utilizes logos, pathos, and ethos to validate his claims and
prove his confusion and concern to the reader. By nature, he is a credible source, providing facts
he has accumulated over his years in NASA (though he clearly states that most of what he
addresses in this article are his own perspectives and not the perspectives of NASA as a whole)
as well as sources for the more controversial statements he makes. He first educates the audience
on the reality of our changing climate, giving statistical information on how much the
temperature of the planet has risen and how much it is likely to rise in the future, satisfying the
need for hard data and logic. Sellers maintains a solid balance of ethos and pathos, in addition to
the aforementioned logos, by proving his credibility through his work with NASA and by
speaking to the reader openly and without condescension as if we are all on this journey together.
He is opening up to the reader and baring his vulnerability, making the reader more comfortable

with trusting him and more likely to believe what he tells them. This article relies heavily on
facts to set the background, the authors analysis of the facts and proof of credibility, and the
emotional response he elicits, covering logos, pathos, and ethos fairly equally.

Though it crosses a number of genres, this article can be described as an earnest opinion
piece on a strongly scientific concept. Despite his use of factual information, he discusses the
meaning of these facts using words like I think and us, shifting the tone from a piece solely
meant for delivering statistical data to a discussion on what this data means. I think softens the
tone to the point where the reader feels like they are reading the hidden inner thoughts of the
writer that they would never include in a purely professional presentation of data. The author
cares strongly about the topic and about informing the reader to the point where the author will
give the pertinent facts and then help the reader decide how to interpret those facts. Any
scientific author can list a series of facts but not as many scientific authors can effectively
describe what those facts should mean to you in a way that causes you to rethink the way you
view the world. Sellers does not create a list of assignments for the reader to complete in the
future when he is gone, but he poses a question so deep that the reader cannot help but think
about their own answer (or possibilities of an answer) and gives the reader his suggestion.

The persona is not like traditional scientific writing where the author is mainly concerned
with conveying pure facts. Sellers frames most of his sentences like an open discussion with the
reader, further proving that he could have written this in search of responses from others, rather
than as a statement of the facts he already knows. Sellers spent most of his life dedicated to the
future and planning for the unknowns as if his time on earth wouldnt end but his cancer

diagnosis forced him into a new mindset that made him to start over. When an entire system of
operation has to start over with new materials and new limitations, there is a necessary period of
adaptation, but this period is expanded when the system of operation is actually a human brain,
subject to complex and emotional side-reactions that prevent 100% efficiency. Emotions alter
every situation we are put in and cloud our judgment, putting us into less than ideal situations
that could have easily been avoided. Toward the end of the article, Sellers begins to come up
with a plan for the now-confused and potentially worried/distraught reader after tapping into the
general feeling of hopelessness toward climate change that most well-informed climate
researchers live in. He shares his plan with the reader, with the hope of easing their worries as
well as his own worries:

What should the rest of us do? Two things come to mind. First, we should brace for
change. It is inevitable. It will appear in changes to the climate and to the way we
generate and use energy. Second, we should be prepared to absorb these with appropriate
sang-froid. Some will be difficult to deal with, like rising seas, but many others could be
positive. New technologies have a way of bettering our lives in ways we cannot
anticipate. There is no convincing, demonstrated reason to believe that our evolving
future will be worse than our present, assuming careful management of the challenges
and risks. History is replete with examples of us humans getting out of tight spots. The
winners tended to be realistic, pragmatic and flexible; the losers were often in denial of
the threat (Sellers).

In comparison to his earlier, lengthier sentences, these sentences are short and powerful,
providing the reader with reassurance and a solid plan of action for the future of climate change.

Sellers used the design of this article to give the reader a feel for his state of mind
subliminally before they could accurately judge his article. The title Cancer and Climate
Change pulls you in, making you wonder if this is an article comparing the two, making a link
between them, or will propose an altogether different idea. Then, the header photo of a man
standing on a small piece of ice in the middle of the water, but still facing the mainland where he
presumably used to be sets the tone of isolation that Sellers wanted to convey before even getting
to his writing. He wrote because he felt alone and lost after needing to reevaluate his situation
and whether his livelihood was even worthwhile anymore, so starting this article with a picture
that demonstrates isolation is a great way to show the reader how to feel without telling the
reader how to feel. Sellers could have told the reader countless sad anecdotes about his struggle
with isolation and how this experience made him feel, but he stuck to the facts and kept the focus
on the environment. He wanted the reader to understand his feelings but wanted to find solutions
to the problems that now exist in his mind more than he wanted the reader to commiserate.

Despite his conflicted and possibly disappointed tone, the author does not want to entirely
discredit the push for environmental consciousness and activism. He is very passionate about
environmentalism and immediately following his cancer diagnosis, instead of doing the typical
bucket-list type activities, he says that all [he] really wanted to do was spend more time with the
people [he] know[s] and love[s], and get back to [his] office as quickly as possible (Sellers).
Sellers is being transparent about his skepticism and implies to the reader that he does not even

have the answer to his own question. In my opinion, his closing paragraph is the most indicative
of his thoughts throughout the article:

As an astronaut I spacewalked 220 miles above the Earth. Floating alongside the
International Space Station, I watched hurricanes cartwheel across oceans, the Amazon
snake its way to the sea through a brilliant green carpet of forest, and gigantic nighttime
thunderstorms flash and flare for hundreds of miles along the Equator. From this Godseye-view, I saw how fragile and infinitely precious the Earth is. Im hopeful for its future.
And so, Im going to work tomorrow.
Even though he is doubtful, confused and somewhat hopeless in the article, he still finds a way to
believe in the future and keep progressing in life. He reflects on the awesome things he has seen
on this planet, allows himself to feel mystified and inconsequential, and proceeds to do
everything in his power to make a livable future possible. Sellers worked through his existential
crisis in this article and helped the reader gain some clarity on what true environmentalists are
thinking, not just the ideal perspective on what should be done to ensure a safe future.

Works Cited
Sellers, Piers J. "Cancer and Climate Change." The New York Times. The New York Times, 16
Jan. 2016. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.