Answer:
Tavin McLeavitt and Shaunna Rangel present two different points of view as regards diamond mining, but Tavin McLeavitt is the writer who presents the stronger case among them.
McLeavitt's article <em>"Diamond Mining: Harmful to the Environment"</em> presents solid arguments on why mining is not beneficial for the environment. He lists the impacts that this activity has on people, land, water, and air pollution.
For example, he states that diamond mining affects water supply and animals' habitat by describing what happened in Canada, <em>"Canada's Northwest Territories provides an example of how water is affected by diamond mining. Companies have drained twenty lakes, causing massive changes to the environment and disrupting the natural habitats of many species".</em>
Also, he explains how the soil and everything related to it are affected by mining. We can see it when he says, <em>"removing soil along the coast forever changes shorelines, which has a wide-ranging impact. In addition, any mine's expansion encroaches on natural animal habitats, decreasing wildlife populations."</em>
On the other hand, Shaunna Ragel is in favor of mining. He claims that there are new policies that governments and the mining industry have taken to reduce the impact on the environment.
The proofs are not strong enough to convince the reader about mining and what they do. We can see that there have been improvements regarding the environment, but the industry still impacts hard. For example, when the author says, <em>"Researchers are working on new, less water-intensive methods of diamond extraction. Measures to use energy sources that do not emit dangerous carbons into the air have been put into place, and the levels of chemicals that reach the air are closely monitored..." </em>We see that mining is still damaging our environment, and there are not the needed technologies to stop it.
Another example of how mining is affecting the planet is regarding species, wildfire preserves have been established, but they would not be necessary if diamond mining would not be so harsh towards species and their habitat.
In conclusion, Travin McLeavitt presents the stronger case because he presents clear evidence that supports the statements, while Shaunna Rangel does not give as specific evidence as to the first author, and there are not so many concrete changes that prove us that mining is not the villain anymore.
Explanation:
An argumentative essay has three main parts:
We introduce the essay's topic and our point of view.
It consists of multiple paragraphs that explain our point of view. We give the reasons and evidence from the text to support what we say. It is important to explain what both articles say and cite evidence to support our argument.
In this last section of the essay, we restate our point of view.