Tow #25 "The Koch Attack on Solar Energy"

Reading goals: clearly identify purpose of article
Writing goals: concise thesis and strong arguments supported by article


In this weeks Sunday Review issue in NYtimes, The Editorial Board wrote an article about the Koch industries attack on the nation's shift towards renewable energy. Koch industries are heavily involved in the manufacturing and distribution of petroleum, chemicals and energy. They see the expanding solar panel businesses as a threat to them and recently have found a new tax on solar panels they support to make renewable energy less appealing to the public. Through the use of statistics and short, terse sentence structure authors clearly portray The Koch industries as a menace to an advancement that "the country needs: solar energy panels".

The Editorial Board first uses statistics to convince the public why it is important to move towards renewable energy sources. Citing the benefit of renewables for the economy as well as environmental reasons, the authors state, "more than 143,000 now work in the solar industry...43 states require utilities to buy excess power generated by consumers with solar arrays." By using relevant statistics, the article makes it obvious that we as a country are already implementing renewable energy sources and look to increase this number in the near future to the benefit of the public.

Furthermore, they demonize the Koch industries by explaining that the Koch brothers are supporting a new tax that charges advocates for the use of solar panels each month by describing their actions in terse sentences. These effective pauses allow the author to emphasize the diction and display a sense of urgency- that what the Koch industries are doing is detrimental to the environment and people. 

Through the use of statistics and terse sentence structure, The Editorial Board of NYtimes aims to call out and inform the public of the Koch industries actions and encourage them to support renewable energy in the future.