Biodivirsity

What makes professor Thomas Eisners speech on biodiversity so phenomenal is the way he uses persuasive techniques to convince his audience that we as humans have unfortunately not done enough for our planet, he makes them question them self whether or not we have really come in our commitment to achieve a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss, as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to ensure that preservation of life on earth' He uses techniques such as rhetorical questions; emotive language repetition and statistics which are just to name a few, to make his audience feel the same way he does. One of the persuasive techniques used during his speech which was found as being very effective would be his ability to make his audience question themselves! Rhetorical questions are asked only to emphasize an obvious answer, such as “Has this been a year of celebration of life on earth' Has this, in fact been a year of action” When the audience clearly know the answer is a big fat “NO”, rhetorical questions can increase persuasion and message processing, creating a relatively strong, resistant attitude. By professor Thomas Eisner using emotive language throughout his speech it creates empathy, Through the use of this the audience is able to understand the emotions of the characters and 'put themselves in the character's shoes, in this case, the characters being animals/ plants - “In truth, for the first time since the Dinosaurs disappeared , animals and plants are being driven towards extinction faster than new species can evolve” ““ Due to our own thoughtless actions ” and “ SADLY, over the last one hundred years we have lost 35% of mangroves, 40% of forest and 50% of wetlands! The audience now feels not only sorry for the animals, mangroves, forest and wetlands lost but feel as if they could have done something to prevent it. Using repetition as a persuasive technique throughout his speech helps the audience get a better understanding of the situation! Continuously telling the audience that they have simply not done enough to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss! Repeating his point a numerous amount of times so that it stays in the audiences head! Inclusive language is used quite frequently throughout his speech; it is the language that avoids the use of certain expressions or words that might be considered to exclude/include particular groups of people! In this case he is referring to everyone in the audience as not doing enough to help the reduce rate of biodiversity loss. “What have WE-what have YOU and YOUR country – actually done since 2002 to contribute to the achievements of our goal' “This is a year of vital significance to OUR world” Statistics are used to make his information throughout his speech that little more powerful, example being “ We have lost 35% mangroves, 40% of forest and 50% of wetlands “ “ International Union for Conservation Of nature. Red list of 44 837 species assessed, 38% are today threatened and 804 already extinct”. Numbers are very powerful when used correctly! This just shows the audience how big a loss we have actually experienced. In conclusion professor did a great job in convincing the audience that we need to do more to stop biodiversity loss , but could not of done it without using persuasive techniques. .