#13 - Fossil-fuel producers say that it would be prohibitive

[Dave Killoran]

Awesome, I'm glad that helped! And thanks for the kind words about the books—I appreciate those very, very much. Thank you!

[martinbeslu]

Nikki, In your explanation for answer choice D you said:

"According to answer choice (D), it is even easier to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than is to phase CFC's, making the conclusion that much stronger."

I keep reading this answer choice to try to understand how it is easier to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The answer choice says, "...without hurting profits of fossil-fuel producers significantly more than phasing out CFCs..."

Doesn't this imply that reducing carbon dioxide emissions hurts profits some amount more but not significantly more?

[Adam Tyson]

It doesn't imply that it would hurt profits at all, martinbeslu, but rather that it would be no worse than the harm to the chemical industry in the analogous situation. While this might not prove that the claim (that it would be prohibitively expensive to reduce levels of carbon dioxide emitted by the use of fossil fuels enough to halt global warming) is false, it helps, and that is all we are trying to do in this Strengthen question. Anything that helps the argument that the fossil fuel producers are wrong will be a good answer here, and answer D helps by showing that they won't be any worse off then the chemical industry was when they managed it, sometimes at a profit.

It's not about profit or loss - it's just about it not being prohibitively costly. If it wasn't prohibitively costly for the chemical industry, and it is no worse for the fossil fuel guys, that helps.

I hope that helps!

[abby1285]

I got this question wrong because I picked E and I do see how it is wrong. However, I was deciding between D and E and I was worried about D because the language in it: "There are ways of reducing carbon dioxide emissions that could halt global warming..." I was thinking that this was broad and left the possibility open that the carbon dioxide emissions could be halted in a completely different way than the fossil fuel industry reducing them. I would've picked D if the language had read: "There are ways of reducing carbon dioxide emissions (FROM FOSSIL FUELS) that could halt global warming." I am being too picky about exact language here and should assume they are talking about the fossil fuel energy because they are referenced later in the answer choice? Thanks!

[Robert Carroll]

Abby,

I can see where you're coming from, but I think that feature actually makes answer choice (D) even better. Ultimately, in the stimulus, we want to prevent global warming. The contemplated way of doing that is by reducing carbon dioxide emitted by the use of fossil fuels. Answer choice (D) is either about fossil fuel emissions or not - if so, that completely resolves your objection. If it is not about fossil fuel emissions, then it's saying that we can halt global warming without hurting profits any more than in the CFC case. Well, what we want is to reduce global warming, right? If, somehow, we could find a way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions enough to halt global warming, we'd not care HOW we go there, but we'd be happy THAT we got there.

I imagine the fossil-fuel people looking at answer choice (D) and saying "Great! Either we can reduce our contribution to global warming without hurting our profits, or the contribution can be reduced somehow, again without hurting our profits, and we don't even have to do anything." Either way, the goal is achieved without too bad a hit to profits, so it supports the argument.

Robert Carroll