For my first example blog post, I chose a TED Lecture by Graham Hill called "Why I'm a Weekday Vegetarian." To give a bit of background, TED is a non-profit organization that's dedicated to bringing together the best minds in the country to give short talks on important subjects such as education, the environment, war and foreign policy, technology, etc, etc. In this video, Graham Hill, creator of treehugger.com - a website to promote all things sustainable - gives a short, four minute talk on the topic of meat consumption and vegetarianism.
One of the effective strategies I noticed in Hill's talk is the use of rhetorical questions; that is, questions directed at the audience to bring them into the conversation and relate to their experience. Toward the beginning of the video, he confesses that, even given all he knows about the harmful impact of meat eating, he has had trouble taking the plunge and becoming a vegetarian. He asks the audience, "why was I stalling?". This question allows the audience to consider the reasons that they themselves may or may not be stalling when it comes to the question of vegetarianism. Later, he talks about vowing that each meal of meat would be his last, but continuing to eat it regardless and asks, "sound familiar?". Again, with this question, he tries to help the audience relate to his experience. Maybe they've felt like this before.
Another effective strategy is the symmetry of his talk. Two times at the beginning, he lists the drawbacks of meat consumption to our health, the animals, and greenhouse gas emissions. Then, once he poses his solution of weekday vegetarianism, he lists the benefits of this choice a couple of times as well ("health, pocketbook, environment, animals"). This technique of listing and recapitulating his reasons for going weekday veg, as he says, works very effectively to help the audience remember all of the benefits to be gained from reducing meat consumption.
I also enjoy the humor in his talk, for example, when he says "Imagine your last hamburger." Another quotable line that seemed significant was his final statement that, "if all of us ate half as much meat, it would be like half of us are vegetarians." His position makes a lot of sense to me because it does seem like vegetarianism and meat eating are presented to society as extreme, opposing choices, while in reality, we could all do a lot more good by simply picking a more mindful place in the middle.
Questions for discussion:
1) Which parts of the talk did you connect with most? Did the talk relate at all to your personal experiences?
2) Which parts of the talk seemed most convincing to you? What kind of evidence does Hill use to support his points and does it seem valid to you?
3) What are your impressions of vegetarianism - does it seem like a radical position? Does this more middle of the road option seem appealing?
