Rifkin. A second thought about animals? Questions

Identify 3 of Rifkin's main claims.  List three types of evidence, and describe a strategy Rifkin uses to persuade his audience (see page 7 of the reader).
Do you think this is effective? Why/why not? (post this to your blog, or if you haven't set this up, print and hand bring to class).  

1)   In “A second thought about animals”, Rifkin really goes into detail about all the other animals that we share this planet with and stresses the fact that they have a far more great impact on us not just us, but the whole world.  Rifkin makes many claims in his work describing how we think we know everything about these creatures when in reality we know nothing but the bear minimum. He emphasizes how these creatures hold many attributes and qualities that we have never seen before and are only starting to discover.  That they relate to us humans far more than we know or ever though.  After doing various tests we continue to find many surprising results, how gorillas and orangutans especially, not only act and behave like us but think like us as well and with lots of facts to prove it.  Another claim of his, was to show the readers some of the gruesome stuff that us humans actually do to these animals.  Making shoes, purses, clothes, soup, slaughtering them, and imprisoning them into small cages and cells where to live depressed, is the least of our crimes and new laws need to be issued to repair animal rights! Rifkin wants the people to stop, and think of the endless possibilities that we can accomplish with these animals if they were treated and though of differently.

2)   Rifkin provides the readers with lots of evidence to defend his case and his view on this predicament. One being their studies on pigs showing that if they don’t get played with or shows attention daily they can easily get depressed and end up dying because of isolation.  Another proof of evidence is the rats, how when they play together in groups they give off Dopamine, which is the same neurotransmitter that we give off when we are feeling the emotion happy.  He also talked about how orangutans and gorillas are more skilled than most animals and have the most comparison to humans due to their high intelligence in language skills.

3)   One of the strategies that Rifkin uses in this particular work of his, is the way an author addresser the reader. I think this because this passage was presented in a way to prove a point, a way to make us actually ponder of all the true things that we never really think about, so his stern tone is surprising.  Listening to all of these facts and experiments listed makes us awe at all the stuff that we never knew about.  Also Rifkin uses a strong way of organizing his text, by listing all of the examples in the front of the passage, and then later explains the details behind it.  This strategy is very effective for it pursues the readers, and Rifkin can close it off with a powerful statement.