Write a response to this argument of his in which you consider whether you think he has a point.

1. This week we read Jared Diamond’s essay “The Last Americans.” In it, he discusses the “popular misconception” in which people have great faith that new technologies will rescue us from the environmental problems we are causing. He writes:
Those with such faith assume that the new technologies will ultimately succeed, but in fact some of them may succeed and others may not. They assume that the new technologies will succeed quickly enough to make a big difference soon, but all of these major technological changes will actually take five to thirty years to develop and implement—if they catch on at all. Most of all, those with faith assume that new technology won’t cause any new problems. In fact, technology merely constitutes increased power, which produces changes that can be either for the better or for the worse. All of our current environmental problems are unanticipated harmful consequences of our existing technology. There is no basis for believing that technology will miraculously stop causing new and unanticipated problems while it is solving the problems that it previously produced.
Write a response to this argument of his in which you consider whether you think he has a point. Be sure to address the details of his argument, especially the last two, italicized sentences.
2. Apply the principles of global coherence that we discussed this week to the last eight paragraphs of Jared Diamond’s essay. Start with the eighth paragraph from the end, the one beginning “If all of this reasoning seems straightforward…,” and then work down to the end of the essay. For each paragraph, quote the language that shows how that paragraph maintains global coherence by relates to the paragraph before it and the paragraph after it. In addition, note any place where Diamond draws attention to how his discussion is ordered. Finally, note places where Diamond takes the time to draw attention to either his essay’s main point, or why we should care about his main point.
EACH MUST BE 200 WORDS EACH.