LSAT 118 – Section 1 – Question 19

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PT118 S1 Q19
+LR
Strengthen +Streng
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
65%
167
B
5%
160
C
5%
161
D
16%
161
E
8%
159
147
158
169
+Harder 148.411 +SubsectionMedium

Columnist: Much of North America and western Europe is more heavily forested and has less acid rain and better air quality now than five decades ago. Though this may be due largely to policies advocated by environmentalists, it nonetheless lends credibility to the claims of people who reject predictions of imminent ecological doom and argue that environmental policies that excessively restrict the use of natural resources may diminish the wealth necessary to adopt and sustain the policies that brought about these improvements.

Summarize Argument
People claim that excessively restrictive policies on natural resources make it financially difficult to adopt and sustain environmental policies. Their evidence is that North American and western Europe are more heavily forested and have better air quality than 50 years ago.

Notable Assumptions
The people in question assume that North America and western Europe not only didn’t adopt restrictive policies on natural resources in the last 50 years, but that North America and western Europe also implemented effective environmental policies that relied on wealth. If clean air and forestation somehow came in spite of government policies, then these people wouldn’t have a very convincing argument.

A
Nations sustain their wealth largely through industrial use of the natural resources found within their boundaries.
If nations restrict their natural resource use, they restrict their primary source of wealth. Thus, restrictive laws on natural resource use absolutely would diminish nations’ wealth.
B
The more advanced the technology used in a nation’s industries, the greater is that nation’s ability to devote a portion of its resources to social programs.
We don’t care about technology. This doesn’t factor into the argument.
C
A majority of ecological disasters arise from causes that are beyond human control.
We don’t care about ecological disasters. We’re talking about the ecological damage governments can control through policy.
D
If a compromise between the proponents of economic growth and the environmentalists had been enacted rather than the current policies, the environment would have seen significantly less improvement.
We have no idea what that compromise would look like. Nor do we know what policies environmentalists advocated for.
E
The concern demonstrated by a nation for the health and integrity of its natural ecosystems leads to an increase in that nation’s wealth.
This relationship doesn’t appear in the argument. The causal relationship is: more wealth causes more environmental protection.

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