#23 - Environmentalist: Efforts to attain an overall

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[cardigan_person]

Is the error here that the environmentalist concluded that only government policies can produce change on the required scale? And he assumed that people themselves can't lead the reduction to the required scale
?

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, cardigan_person,

Good question. It would be helpful to establish some clarity here about the argument. To this end, let's analyze its components:

• Conclusion: Efforts to reduce overall carbon emissions by focusing on personal emissions will not succeed.
• Premise: No amount of reductions from individuals will be sufficient to achieve necessary reductions in carbon use.
• Premise: Only government policies can be sufficient to achieve these reductions.

What do we know for sure? We know that individual action alone is insufficient. What do we know is needed? Government action.

Is there any way it could be possible that targeting individual use could be successful? Keep in mind that government action is a sine qua non, an essential element of success.

You could prephrase a possibility: What if encouraging individuals to take action on carbon emissions could have the ancillary, side benefit of getting them to support politicians and policies that support similar efforts on a government-wide scale? This would certainly go against this author's conclusion that efforts to target individuals are hopeless.

Let's think in terms of the necessary assumption the author must make for the argument to make sense. The author at a minimum must believe that targeting individuals will not lead to them successfully pressuring their government to make widespread reductions.

This is what's happening in answer choice (A). Use the Assumption Negation Test™:

• Targeting individuals will lead to them successfully pressuring their government to make widespread reductions.

Now does our conclusion that "efforts to reduce overall carbon emissions by focusing on personal emissions will not succeed" make sense? No, it is no longer possible, so this is the credited response.

Note that the argument here uses a kind of fallacy of composition in reverse; that is, in a classic fallacy of composition the author makes a conclusion about a group based on something about its parts (e.g. Doctors' primary concern is patient care. Therefore, the primary concern of doctors' professional organizations must be patient care.). In this case, the author concludes that some group-wide (government-wide) event will not occur based on efforts directed at individuals. This phenomenon of a characteristic appearing in a larger entity based on the actions or interactions of smaller entities, known as "emergence," cannot be assumed to occur (fallacy of composition) but likewise cannot be assumed not to occur, as illustrated here.

I hope this helps!

[ScholesFan]

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks very much for your very helpful explanation. I want to ask a quick question, just to make sure I'm identifying conclusions correctly.

Isn't the statement "Only government policies can produce change on the required scale," the conclusion of the argument?

Thanks in advance!

[Adam Tyson]

I am with Jonathan on this one, ScholesFan - the conclusion is the first sentence. Consider the relationship between the first and last sentence and ask yourself which one supports the other. Is it:

a. Focusing on personal use will not achieve the goal, therefore only government policies can do it

or

b. Only government policies can do it, therefore focusing on personal use won't achieve the goal?

The latter makes more sense here - if one thing is absolutely required, then focusing on something different is insufficient. Read the other way around, there could be other alternatives beside government policies. The author's intention here is to show that a focus on personal use won't get the job done, and everything else is provided to support that conclusion.

When trying to determine the main conclusion among two contenders, take them out of the argument and just compare them to each other. Which one gets support, and which one gives it? The one that gives support cannot be the main conclusion - it's either a premise or an intermediate conclusion. The one that gets all the support and gives none is your main conclusion. Give that a try next time you are faced with one of these!

[T.B.Justin]

Hey PS,

As quoted from Jonathan above:

You could prephrase a possibility: What if encouraging individuals to take action on carbon emissions could have the ancillary, side benefit of getting them to support politicians and policies that support similar efforts on a government-wide scale? This would certainly go against this author's conclusion that efforts to target individuals are hopeless.

I am not sure how to understand this prephrase but I am going to try.

Seems to me that this is a negative statement that would hurt the conclusion if true. It also seems this is describing some titration effect where by convincing people to reduce their fossil fuel use they will in turn support policies and politicians that support similar government policies.

We know even if people are convinced to reduce their use of fossil fuels that it would not be enough for an overall reduction of fossil fuels on widespread level, so with that said it seems I should be saying "nonetheless" this still hurts the conclusion, so is the assumption prephrase, "encouraging individuals to reduce their fossil fuel use could not have the benefit of getting them to in turn support politicians and/or policies that support similar benefits on a government-wide scale."

I say that last sentence with a swallow in my throat like I did something "incorrect."

[hadimadi]

Hi,

I don't know if I understood the argument correctly, but for me, it is the following:

Given:Most people changing their behaviour of personal fuel use won't be enough -> Efforts to convince people to reduce personal use of fossils won't be enough

Author Concludes: Only government policies can produce change on required scale

To put it into a chain: Personal behavior won't be enough -> Efforts to convince people to reduce use won't be enough -> Only government can help

For only the government to be able to help, we require:

- People, when reducing their carbon use, do so to the maximum. The text says people change their behaviour (to the good), but we don't know how strongly they do so, and if they are at their maximum. If this were not true, people COULD bring about the required change, and then, it wouldn't be only the government anymore

(A) Let's assume this. This won't explain why government is the only body that can bring the change about

(B) It it is too complex for people to calculate, government can jump in and guide + introduce new policies. This matches with what we require

I see that the main difference between my answer and the rest is the conclusion. But to be honest, I don't see how 'Efforts to attain an overall reduction in personal carbon use isn't enough to bring the required change about' is the conclusion of this passage. Please help!

[Robert Carroll]

hadimadi,

Remember, this is an Assumption question. You should not be assuming the answer at all. The argument has to already assume the answer in order for that answer to be correct. So...does the author really need to assume that the calculations are too difficult for individuals? No way! The author thinks that changes in personal use of fossil fuels can't produce the needed reductions. Why is that? The argument doesn't explicitly say - possibly because personal fossil fuel use, as compared with corporate or other large-scale use, isn't enough to make a difference? Possibly because people can't calculate well enough? The argument doesn't seem to fix on one reason why changes in personal use won't do the job. So when answer choice (B) acts as if the argument is assuming it MUST be due to a failure to calculate, that's far too specific a reason to have to be assumed by the argument.

To recognize that the first sentence is in fact the conclusion, consider that the argument did not even attempt to show that the last sentence is true. It's not something the argument is claiming follows from everything else. So it can't be the conclusion - it's a premise.

Robert Carroll