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Lexi Petrozza
Yeaton
English 10 Pre-AP H
05 February 2018
Citation:
Kristof, Nicholas. “Swallowed by the Sea” Editorial. The New York Times [New York] Jan.
2018: n. pag, Swallowed by the Sea. www.nytimes.com, 19 Jan. 2018. Web. 05 Feb. 2018.
Nicholas Kristof discusses the effects of climate change on the island Kutubdia in Bangladesh
and how it is affecting the families that live there and have to leave due to this issue. Kristof
discusses one example of a family that lost all of their land to the ocean and how his child,
Munni Akter, may have to marry an older man due to the fact that they have been left with
nothing and they can’t support her. The author also provides information about how child
marriage is being linked to climate change and poverty. He claims that the western countries can
do more than just reducing carbon emissions to help solve this problem, such as supporting
Tone: Kristof’s tone in the article is mostly informative and how it is not only affecting the
island, but also the people. At the end of the article, the tone shifts to concern that current
Context: Kristof mainly discusses rising tides due to climate change and its effect on the island
and its families. The reader would need to understand the main causes of climate change to
Appeals: Kristof uses logos in his article by discussing how anybody that doubts climate change
should visit Kutubdia before it could possibly disappear. He also uses ethos by citing statistics
from the director of Unicef saying “In Bangladesh, tens of millions of children and families are
at risk of losing their land and their livelihoods from rising sea levels...” Finally, Kristof appeals
to emotion with with interviews of parents having to marry off their young children because they
Strategies and Devices: Kristof uses stories of the plight of the families and young children as
anecdotes. He also uses imagery through his description of the remains of houses before the
Organization: This article uses cause and effect by describing the impact on Kutubdia and its
Diction/Word Choice: The diction used in the article is neutral. The vocabulary used is
definitely understandable for high school level. Some of the words used like “sobering”,
“glumly”, and “indignant” give a negative effect to Kristof’s opinion on this issue.
Kristof begins the article by describing how the island of Kutubdia is disappearing due to climate
change and the impact it's having on the islands people. He includes interviews that he has had
with families, one being a family with a young girl, “A year ago in Madagascar I met a family
ready to marry off a 10-year-old girl, Fombasoa, because of a drought linked to climate change.”
These personal experiences that Kristof includes in the article gives the reader an idea of how big
of an impact the destruction of Kutubdia has on the islands families. He also states that climate
change is destroying many other things such as, “changing ocean currents, killing coral reefs…”
A main point that the author conveys is that the islands’ people are not responsible for the result
of climate change, “One of the paradoxes of climate change is that the world’s poorest and most
vulnerable people-- who contribute almost nothing to warming the planet -- end up being most
harmed by it.” Kristof makes it apparent that the intended audience is Americans, who
contribute “more than twice as much as any other country” to global warming. At the end of the
article, Kristof is concerned if poor countries like Bangladesh will ever recover as climate
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change continues to get worse. He cites a recent decision by President Trump, “...the outlook for
their descendants may depend on the actions he takes-- and his withdrawal from the Paris climate
have at least the same concern for climate change and the people of Kutubdia as they do for other
issues, “Americans were recently horrified by a viral video of a starving polar bear… Let’s hope
we can be just as indignant about the impact of climate change…” After reading this article, my
view on the impact of climate change has definitely changed and has made me more worried