#8 - Proponents of the electric car maintain that when

[Ssouki]

Hello,

I don't understand why E is incorrect and A is the correct answer choice. The stimulus refers to " abatement." Abatement can mean reduction only and not necessarily total elimination. So, if the economist is arguing against the proponents saying that it is not the way they think it is, then answer choice E that refers to this idea of no reduction should still hold true since the proponents may be talking about only a reduction in the environmental damage and not the total elimination of it when they mentioned "abatement". Also, "worse than" may be understood as answer choice D -like an increase in the damage instead, so why is that?

Thank you!
Sara

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Sara,

The full explanation for this question is in the June 2007 LR 2 explanation area, specifically at lsat/viewtopic.php?t=2216. So, before we reply to your question, we're going to first move your post to that forum, and then append it to the pre-existing thread.

In the meantime, please take a look at what is written there and perhaps it will address your question.

Thanks!

[Ssouki]

Thank you Dave! Yes, I looked over these answers. However, my only remaining concern is the word "abatement." How did we infer that the proponents actually meant total elimination when they mentioned "abatement"? What if they only meant to say a reduction in the environmental damage. If this is the case, then that makes answer choice E possible because no net reduction can also mean a consequence that is "worse than" what the proponents may come to believe.

Thank you!!

[James Finch]

Hi Ssouki,

This question was probably written by a lawyer, as "abatement" is a term of art in common law jurisdictions. It can mean different things depending on the jurisdiction or area of law, such as a formal end to a criminal proceeding based upon the death of the defendant, or the reduction of debt based on an estate's insufficient assets. In common English, it can mean anything from "end completely" to a reduction.

Here we are asked to infer the precise definition of "end completely" based upon the immediately proceeding parenthitcal in the same sentence, which tells us that the electric cars are "emission-free," meaning that their adoption would lead to a complete end of "the environmental degradation caused by auto emissions."

Hope this clears things up!

[ntusss]

Hi PowerScore Staff,

I'm stuck between (A) and (E).

I'm not sure if there's a term shift in the stimulus. The proponents claim that when electric cars are used, environmental degradation caused by auto emissions will reduce. And the author later on suggests that unless we dam more rivers, the electricity used by electric cars will come from nuclear or coal-fired power, both of which cause huge environmental damage.

I think "environmental degradation caused by auto emissions" and "environmental damage (caused by nuclear / coal-fired power)" refer to two different things, right? If so, then even if nuclear / coal-fired power brings huge environmental damage, the environmental degradation (caused by auto emissions) could still reduce.

This is how I see why (E) is incorrect, but I'm not sure if I'm on the right track ... Appreciate if you help with this one, thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

I don't see that as a shift in terms, ntusss, but a difference in degree. Environmental degradation is damage to the environment, making things worse, so whether you call it degradation or damage you are saying the same thing. Only the cause is changing. The problem with E is that we cannot know that the damage caused by the nuclear and coal plants will be as bad as the emissions of non-electric cars would have been. All we can infer is that the benefits may not be a great as some people think they will be.

[piercebarry]

Hi,

I am still confused by this question because the passage gives us the possibility that electric cars will not be more damaging to the environment if "we dam more rivers." Therefore, we don't know that electric cars will have damaging effects on the environment unless we don't dam more rivers, which seems like it could be a technical problem (sort of) which is why I chose answer C.

Can you explain why the phrase "unless we dam more rivers," does not preclude answer A from being incorrect? It seems to me that, from this passage, you cannot conclude that electric cars WILL have worse environmental consequences than its proponents may believe since the passage offers a possibility to avoid these environmental consequences.

Thank you!

[Dana D]

Hey Piercebarry,

The stimulus says "unless we dam more rivers", which means that if the current state of the world remains, the electricity to charge these batteries will come from nuclear or coal-fired power plants. We have no reason to think we will dam more rivers, so we have to assume that as of right now, that is where the battery charge will come from. This question asks us to logically complete the argument; it doesn't want us to analyze whether it's actually a good argument or not. If we were to do that, yes, the fact that we could dam more rivers and avoid using any nuclear or coal-fired power plants for electricity would be a good way to weaken the argument here, but that is not what the question is asking of us.

We want to focus in on the proponents reasoning here - they say electric cars are going to result in less environmental damage. The author is pointing out that this may not be the case, because the charge for the electric car batteries will actually require considerable environmental damage. Answer choice (A) restates that idea.

The 'technical problems' in answer choice (C) refer to the technical problems of the battery design, while the stimulus' argument is concerned with how those batteries will be charged. It's not that we can't charge them - it's that we will be using electricity from environmentally damaging sources.