Petrozza 1

Lexi Petrozza

Yeaton

English 10 Pre-AP H

05 February 2018

The Columnist Project

Citation:

Kristof, Nicholas. “Swallowed by the Sea” Editorial. The New York Times [New York] Jan.

2018: n. pag, Swallowed by the Sea. ​www.nytimes.com​, 19 Jan. 2018. Web. 05 Feb. 2018.

Part 1: Article Analysis

Nicholas Kristof discusses the effects of climate change on the island Kutubdia in Bangladesh

and how it is affecting the families that live there and have to leave due to this issue. Kristof

discusses one example of a family that lost all of their land to the ocean and how his child,

Munni Akter, may have to marry an older man due to the fact that they have been left with

nothing and they can’t support her. The author also provides information about how child

marriage is being linked to climate change and poverty. He claims that the western countries can

do more than just reducing carbon emissions to help solve this problem, such as supporting

drought resistant crops and offering microinsurance to farmers.

 Petrozza 2

Tone:​ Kristof’s tone in the article is mostly informative and how it is not only affecting the

island, but also the people. At the end of the article, the tone shifts to concern that current

American policies are making matters even worse.

Context:​ Kristof mainly discusses rising tides due to climate change and its effect on the island

and its families. The reader would need to understand the main causes of climate change to

understand why tides are rising.

Appeals:​ Kristof uses logos in his article by discussing how anybody that doubts climate change

should visit Kutubdia before it could possibly disappear. He also uses ethos by citing statistics

from the director of Unicef saying “In Bangladesh, tens of millions of children and families are

at risk of losing their land and their livelihoods from rising sea levels...” Finally, Kristof appeals

to emotion with with interviews of parents having to marry off their young children because they

cannot support them.

Strategies and Devices:​ Kristof uses stories of the plight of the families and young children as

anecdotes. He also uses imagery through his description of the remains of houses before the

destruction from the high tides.

 Petrozza 3

Organization:​ This article uses cause and effect by describing the impact on Kutubdia and its

families by linking the destruction to climate change.

Diction/Word Choice​: The diction used in the article is neutral. The vocabulary used is

definitely understandable for high school level. Some of the words used like “sobering”,

“glumly”, and “indignant” give a negative effect to Kristof’s opinion on this issue.

Part 2: Personal Response

Kristof begins the article by describing how the island of Kutubdia is disappearing due to climate

change and the impact it's having on the islands people. He includes interviews that he has had

with families, one being a family with a young girl, “A year ago in Madagascar I met a family

ready to marry off a 10-year-old girl, Fombasoa, because of a drought linked to climate change.”

These personal experiences that Kristof includes in the article gives the reader an idea of how big

of an impact the destruction of Kutubdia has on the islands families. He also states that climate

change is destroying many other things such as, “changing ocean currents, killing coral reefs…”

A main point that the author conveys is that the islands’ people are not responsible for the result

of climate change, “One of the paradoxes of climate change is that the world’s poorest and most

vulnerable people-- who contribute almost nothing to warming the planet -- end up being most

harmed by it.” Kristof makes it apparent that the intended audience is Americans, who

contribute “more than twice as much as any other country” to global warming. At the end of the

article, Kristof is concerned if poor countries like Bangladesh will ever recover as climate
 Petrozza 4

change continues to get worse. He cites a recent decision by President Trump, “...the outlook for

their descendants may depend on the actions he takes-- and his withdrawal from the Paris climate

accord is an unhelpful surrender of American leadership.” He ends with a plea to Americans to

have at least the same concern for climate change and the people of Kutubdia as they do for other

issues, “Americans were recently horrified by a viral video of a starving polar bear… Let’s hope

we can be just as indignant about the impact of climate change…” After reading this article, my

view on the impact of climate change has definitely changed and has made me more worried

about what the result could be.