Coal. Its what drives our world. Thousands of people have employment because of this black substance.

Yet thousands more are losing years off their lives due to coal. Many men have given their lives in the pursuit of this finite rock, and many others are suffering the health risks that come with burn it. But I am not alone in my thoughts about this public health risk. Many of the articles published today on the subject of coal are against it. The articels that have been chosen to illustrate this fact are all editorials. These articles are Clamping Down on Coal, Obamas Drive for U.S. Global-Warning Law, Preventing Mining Disasters, and Canary in the Coal Mine. All but one of these articles attacks the topic of coal with the intent to cause it harm in the publics eye. The one that doesnt attack the issue attacks the president. The articles against the issue of coal mining looked at the topic as a blight, one that not only scars the land but the people of the world as well. They do this in several different ways. First is the use of expert testimony. In Canary in the Coal Mine, the author relies heavily on a report by the Mine Safety and Health Administration on the explosion of the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia to back up its claim that some coal companies are only out for profit. The author of this article also quotes the Administrator for Coal, Kevin Stricklin, to further the authors claim. Another technique used by all three of the articles that are for coal mining was the use of pathos. All three of the articles used sad stories or stories of outrage to poke the reader in the butt and send them running for the guns. In the article Clamping Down on Coal, the author equivalents the nuclear meltdown that almost occurred in Japan after the tsunami hit back in the spring to the coal situation. The author like the previous author, attacks the coal companies. This time the expert testimony used was that from the American Lung Association. The author quotes the stats about the amount of pollutants that are leeched in to the atmosphere from 400 plants in the United States. This author also champions the efforts of the current presidential

administration and condemns the those that are against his efforts to curve the U.S.A.s dependence on coal. The third article is a response to the first article I discussed in this paper. The author of this article attacks the entrenched politicians that are opposed to further legislation to control miner safety in the mines. The author of this article uses two types of fallacies that jump out like snakes in the grass. The first is the fallacy of loaded terms. In the first sentence of the fourth paragraph, the author calls certain coal mining companies unscrupulous. The second of the two blatant fallacies in this article is the fallacy of False Dilemma. The last sentence by the author simply stats this: Lawmakers have two options: They can ignore mine safety until the next disaster, or they can take action now so the next disaster never occurs. With all the arguments against coal mining flooding the internet, it is sometimes to find one that is for coal mining. The author of this article does not come right out and say that coal mining is the best possible answer to our energy needs. The author takes a more round-about way to say it. The author condemns the Obama Administrations call for climate-changing laws. The author says that while greenhouse gases are bad things and that coal mines do pump out a lot of them in to the atmosphere, the author points to a new technique that one coal mine is using in West Virginia. The technique is called carbon capture and sequestrations. However good this might sound, the author misses one important part to validate the claims that this new technique is the best option: the part missing is expert testimony or any facts about the process of CCS. All of the articles against coal mining use a duty based ethics to try to persuade the reader in to action. They accomplish this by saying that all coal mines are bad things and that by not stopping coal we are allowing people to grow sick and miners to die. The article for coal mining to continue used a libertarian view on the topic. The author says that we should change because there are other ways to mine coal and that congress is doing the right thing by stopping all

attempts by the president to stop coal mining. The arguments in all four cases are however much I agree with them biased, in a subtle political way. The article for coal mining condemns the Obama Administration but champions the Republican congress people who stop the bills of environmental change. This gives the article a very right winged view. The articles against coal mining do the opposite. They champion the president and condemn the republican congress people. Its as if both sides say that if the reader is a democrat, the reader must choose against. However, if the reader is republican, than the reader must choose for. My analysis of the arguments presented is that both sides have good points to them. They both offer new techniques and technologies that the U.S.A. could try in the attempt to clean up our act. But both seemed to ignore one important aspect of the argument and that are the miners and their families that depend on the mines for their living. Both sides that I looked into ignored this part. So in conclusion, I am not persuaded to one side or the other. I agree coal mining is bad, but at the same time I recognize that maybe there are things that coal companies could do to clean up their operations.