Logical Reasoning

PT143 · S1 · Q5 Environment minister: Because of

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Environment minister: Because of our concern about global warming, this country has committed itself to reducing its emissions of carbon dioxide substantially over the next ten years.

Conclusion

Planting large numbers of trees will help us to significantly reduce CO2 emissions over the next 10 years.

Evidence (since)

Trees absorb carbon dioxide.

Evaluate

This argument could otherwise be fed into our Plan / Goal framework. The Goal is to reduce CO2 emissions. The Plan is to plant trees.

We skeptically engage with this by thinking,

Maybe the planting of trees involves clearing land or using a lot of machines that themselves emit CO2, so the process of enacting the Plan might increase CO2 emissions.

Maybe trees take like thirty years of growing before they start sucking up any appreciable amount of CO2.

Goal

Our goal is to find an answer choice that demonstrates why planting trees might not significantly contribute to lowering CO2 emissions within the next decade.

5.

Which one of the following, if true, would most weaken the environment minister's argument?

  1. Owners of large tracts of

    No Impact

    Did the Plan involve private citizens planting trees? It sounded like it was government action that was going to plant trees. So who cares about owners of private land? We might try to use this answer to object to the Plan by saying, "If you don't give private landowners money, they won't plant trees." But the author could easily respond, "Cool, we'll give them some money" or "Cool, we don't need them. We're going to plant trees on public land that we control."

    0% picked this

  2. Over the last ten years

    Irrelevant Comparison

    Comparing the % increase of deforested land to the % increase in CO2 is totally irrelevant. The author was never assuming that those two percentages should be keeping track with each other. She is only assuming that if we, going forward, increase the percentage of forested land (i.e. plant some trees) we will decrease the proportion of CO2. This answer doesn't give us any way to call that into question.

    1% picked this

  3. Correct

    When ground is disturbed in

    Why this is right

    This choice presents a scenario where the process of planting trees releases more CO2 than the trees will absorb in the next 10 years. This fundamentally challenges the argument by suggesting that tree planting could have a net negative effect on CO2 reduction, directly opposing the conclusion.

    Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    94% picked this

  4. Many climate researchers believe that

    No Impact

    This doesn't talk about planting trees at all, so it doesn't give us any way to say the Plan won't achieve the Goal. It seems to just be saying many people think we should have a more ambitious Goal, but that has nothing to do with our task.

    0% picked this

  5. Gases other than carbon dioxide

    No Impact (other gases)

    This mention of other gases aside from CO2 is beyond the scope, as the focus is solely on CO2 emissions.

    5% picked this

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