A Modes Analysis

    It is important to remember when we identify a bit of discourse as one mode or another, we are responding to what seems to be the DOMINANT mode of the discourse. Several modes can operate in the same discourse; as readers, we move in and out of modes seamlessly if the writer provides fluid linkages among the different purposes of the writing, but we retain a sense of what we primarily experienced while reading: a story? new information? an argument? an image?

    Kolbert builds her overall argument kind of sneakily: she tells us stories about places where she sees the effects of climate change; she shows us pictures of places where climate change has made the landscape change; she quotes many experts talking about the science of climate change and its effects. She does not seem to be making her own argument until close to the end of the book, and even then, she still relies on others' voices to be persuasive. Her voice is in the background, reporting, shaping, and managing the information about climate change so that we come to share her perspective.

Description:

The Alaskan village of Shishmaref sits on an island known as Sarichef, five miles off the coast of the Seward Peninsula. Sarichef is a small island--no more than a quarter of a mile across and two and a half miles long--and Shishmaref is basically the only thing on it (7)

Narration:

When I visited the village one day in April, the spring thaw was under way, and the seal-hunting season was about to begin. (Wandering around, I almost tripped over the remnants of the previous year's catch emerging from storage under the snow). At noon, the village's transportation planner, Tony Weyiouanna, invited me to his house for lunch (8).

Informative:

Any piece of ground that has remained frozen for at least two years is, by definition, permafrost. In some places, like eastern Siberia, permafrost runs nearly a mile deep; in Alaska, it varies from a couple of hundred feet to a couple of thousand of feet deep (15).

Informative/Descriptive:

In Alaska, the ground is riddled with ice wedges that were created during the last glaciation, when the cold earth cracked and the cracks filled with water. The wedges, which can be dozens or even hundreds of feet deep, tended to form in networks, so when they they melt, they leave behind connecting diamonds--or hexagon-shaped depressions. A few blocks beyond the drunken forest, we came to a house where the front yard showed clear signs of ice-wedge melt-off. The owner, trying to make the best of things, had turned the yard into a miniature-golf course. Around the corner, Romanovsky pointed out a house--no longer occupied--that basically had split in two; the main part was leaning to the right and the garage to the left (16).

Argumentation:

China's growth is often cited as a justification for U.S. inaction. What's the point of going to a lot of trouble if, in the end, your efforts won't make a difference? Hawkins maintains that this argument gets things completely backward. What America does, China in the long run will do too. "This isn't theory," he said.  "We saw it with automobile pollution controls. We adopted those in the seventies and those modern pollution controls are being required around the world today. Sulfur dioxide scrubbers on power plants--we applied them; China is now applying them. There's a very practical reason why this works, and this is if a country like the United States embraces a cleanup technology, then the market starts to drive the price down, and other countries start to see that it is doable." Although no new coal-fired power plants have been built in the United States in recent years, may analysts expect this to change in the coming decade. Hawkins argues that American utilities should be prohibited from constructing any new plants without CCS capability" (181-182).

Because U.S. participation is crucial to a post-Kyoto treaty, a great deal hinges on the upcoming presidential election. There are many who argue that even though U.S. policy appears to be stalled, attitudes among voters are changing. I don't entirely share this view, but certainly some signs are encouraging (197).