An Analysis Of How To Poison The Earth By Linnea Saukko

Gretel Ehrlich’s “Chronicles of Ice” gives her awestruck perspective at the sight of a glacier and how that sight leads to her encouraging saving the planet by starting with protecting the melting glaciers. Glaciers are melting and if they melt, the surface of the planet has nothing to cool off on, so it’s important that these ice blocks protect the planet. Similarly, in “How to Poison the Earth” by Linnea Saukko she tries to advocate on saving the planet, but through a dark humor that says the opposite of what it means. She goes on about contaminating our ocean constantly, so we can effectively pollute the ocean and, then, poisoning our Earth. Saukko’s process analysis, describing how we can pollute the environment is more effective in bringing …show more content…
Saukko has a tone of trickery surrounding the essay with her words having another meaning to what’s presented. This is shown with “First, we must develop many different ways of putting the waste from these nuclear and chemical substances in, on, and around the earth” (1). From a gullible point of view, an individual is thinking she’s genuine and it has them worried, wanting to prevent her from destroying the earth. She’s obviously not going to destroy the world, but giving people a warning through a sense of lying. This shows how individuals have to look for information to understand what’s going on in the environment and not see what’s on the surface. Saukko uses situational irony to intend others to become motivated to change and want to protect the planet. She gives many examples of how to poison the earth like “Lakes are good for long-term storage of pollutants while they release some of their contamination to rivers” (5). Saukko hopes to rile people by having them think she means what’s written, but she wants people to take that concern or anger towards her and put it to use on saving the planet. Saukko is effective because at first glance, I thought she was insane for wanting to destroy the planet but I understood that’s the intention because she doesn’t want to actually poison the earth. Lastly, Saukko uses humor to entertain the idea of the great lengths of how the world can be poisoned. She does this to maintain attention from the readers and simplifying how easily the world can be damaged. An example of this is “The only trouble with rivers is that they act as a natural cleansing system for the earth” (5). She writes as if the cleansing systems of our planet are an inconvenience for her plan to poison our planet, making the topic enjoyable to read. With the grasp she has on poisoning the planet, she dramatically