- Manufacturing nylon releases large amount of environmentally harmful gas
+
Processing of cotton fiber doesn't release the environmentally harmful gases
→
Less environmental damage if cotton fiber were used to make products rather than nylon
My initial thoughts were to be attack the assumption about gases, namely that simply not releasing harmful gases means less environmental damage. What if, while not releasing such gases, processing cotton fiber uses 100x more electricity and thus uses 100x more fossil fuels (bad for the environment!). However, you might also be able to weaken the argument by the very small gap between "processing cotton fiber" and "using cotton fiber to make products." Perhaps "processing" is not the extent of "use." However, this is an early question so I am not anticipating such a nitpicky answer. Instead, I am anticipating my first objection.
- (A) We aren't trying to solve the world's environmental problems! We are just trying to see if cotton fiber is better for the environment than nylon (notice the comparative nature of the conclusion).
(B) "Some environmental damage would be avoided" is sounding a bit like a decent strengthener. It is saying that even substituting SOME production of thread and rope with cotton fiber instead of nylon would save a bit of environmental damage! What if we did a mass substitution as the conclusion tells us to? This would be a great strengthener!
(C) Hmm. Not exactly what I was expecting but it does weaken the argument a bit. It is basically saying that replacing nylon with cotton fiber for manufacturing thread and rope would be a bit offset by the use of nylon in other products. Thus, how can we really say that there would be "less environmental damage done?" This is not very strong so I'll continue to look for others but this is clearly the best so far.
(D) This is similar to (B) and so it definitely sounds like a strengthener! ...."the pollutants that are released...would be reduced."
(E) We want to know what happens when the production of nylon thread and rope are replaced by cotton fiber thread and rope. This is a fairly inconsequential answer choice.
Despite not being a really strong answer, (C) is definitely the best.