The Rhetorical Situation of Climate Change and Our Responses To It

In the Scientific American article "The Green Apple: How Can Cities Adapt to Climate Change?" (what a mouthful) by David Biello, the most obvious and surface exigence is climate change. However, underneath of this, we have the exigences of the author "see[ing] a need to change reality and […] that the change may be effected through rhetorical discourse," as defined by Keith Grant-Davies on page 265 of his article "Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents." There is a continuing conversation surrounding the climate change exigence—which is continually debated as an actual exigence—and that conversation makes up another exigence, as well as the rhetorical situation, and several of the things addressed (see: the hyperlinks included within the article itself) within the "The Green Apple…" article form the intertextuality of the article.  According to Julia Kristeva, as quoted by Frank D'Angelo on page 33 of his " The Rhetoric of Intertextuality", "any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another." Biello is referring to previous articles hosted on the same sight, scientific panels that have already taken place in New York City, and professors or scholars who have already had a say in the discourse.
A large portion of the climate change discourse comes from scientists and experts who are warning a general public—those of us who may not exactly allow ourselves to believe scientists on the first go-round—of weather that is going to start effecting us whether or not we believe in climate change. Many are warning of storms that are capable of shutting down entire large cities, like New York City and Chicago, and it will happen continually as the climate changes.
At this point, it is worth noting that this article was written in 2010, and since then, New York City and the surrounding area has suffered another major hurricane (Hurricane Sandy) with mass flooding and power outages and deaths. Yet, there is still resistance to an effort to stem the tide, so to speak. This is why an author like Biello would see the need to write a science article for laymen in an accessible publication such as Scientific American. The thing is, climate change isn't quite so complicated as we might like to think—it is mostly a result carbon dioxide, "the primary greenhouse gas causing climate change", as Biello says. The solutions to these problems, completely altering our accustomed ways of life, are where we find trouble.
On top of these storms, we are running into increasing problems with drinking water. Fracking and natural gas drilling contaminate water sources that are already dwindling. As well as the national problem of (as the buzzwords suggest) our "crumbling infrastructure" that cause preventable injury and death. Biello quotes a man named Steven Cohen, who advised Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the PlaNYC effort as saying "You're looking at a city that could have its infrastructure compromised for periods of time by these climate change impacts…" in reference to New York City, but the take away and purposeful use of this quote is that this is a national and global problem that ought to be one of our top priorities.
Another exigence within this discourse is that these innovations referred to in the article—solar panel roofs, green roofs, etc—are, in large part, stemming from New York City—the country's largest and most trend-setting metropolis. When we, as a nation and—to a lesser extent—the world, see New York City doing these things, it's worth pointing out because it has the potential to change opinions and behavior simply by existing in New York City. Only problem is that this kind of information rarely, if ever, makes it onto mainstream news stations. We're supposed to see these efforts and believe that our towns ought to be making similar moves. The author believed that perhaps some of his readers could feel persuaded or even like they could receive some instruction (as D'Angelo talks about on page 44 of his article "The Rhetoric of Intertextuality") from the example NYC has set. The problem then, is convincing American cities that alternative energy and energy-reducing technologies are a worthwhile investment. According to Cohen, as quoted by Biello, "New York City is already the most energy-efficient place in America…" but he also believes it to have the potential for more. While some people may protest that it is easier for a city with such a small people per square mile area, the author still saw it as his job to implicitly let his readership know that it is possible to make these changes elsewhere.
The author wants to illustrate that New York City is trying to make these precautions and resilience measures are part of their city standards and that for cities/states that regularly experience natural disasters (Florida and hurricanes, for example) ought to also be coding these precautions into their infrastructure as well. Another exigence, as far as example goes, is the fact that New York City is technically a coastal town with kilometers and kilometers of coast line—they want to prevent property damage as much as any other town and ought to take similar precautions since 39%of the population is living in coastal areas (that only make up 10% of the US'stotal landmass).
D'Angelo says, on page 33 of " The Rhetoric of Intertextuality",  "every text is in a dialogical relationship with other texts…" This article is just one piece in a giant, never-ending puzzle that is the discourse on our modern climate change. Since its publication, there have been countless other articles that have completely ignored this one, made vague references to this one, or even directly quoted/based their argument off of this one. Similarly, it is likely that Biello has written some sort of follow up or counterpoint article to this one since he continues to write articles for Scientific American.

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