Famine, disease, social tension and poverty: progress, social strength, prosperity and structures. All of these are consequences of an issue deeply at the heart of the quest for sustainable human existence; the question of the maximum capacity that planet Earth can bear. As is true of most conundrums that plague our time, there is little consensus on this topic. Fueled by images of social collapse, starvation, and the complete depletion of natural resources, organizations like The Population Institute seek to control what they believe is population growth that is out of control. On the other side of the fence, the Population Research Institute and similar associations present descriptions of a bright future represented by the continued growth of humanity. They fight what they see as dangerous and disturbing attempts to slow human birth rates. These two organizations use various persuasive strategies to achieve their goals. Specifically, this article seeks to explore, analyze, and attempt to understand the reasoning behind the choices each of these two organizations made in using the Aristotelian modes of persuasion known as Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. in the upper left corner of the Population Institute website, it pops up endlessly. The bold capital letters proclaim that this number represents the total population increase since the user arrived at the home page. The gentle contrast of these red stop sign digits against the chart's white background evokes images of the kind of barricade that denotes a damaged or closed road and seems to alert the reader to terrible, imminent danger. Below this birth counter, supported by emot...... in the center of the card......s. To immediately lend credibility to the organization in the form of Ethos, the reputation of a seemingly significant natural scientist is brought to the fore. The pathos is then expressed in a procession of emotional images that most likely arouses in Western audiences the obligation to act against the injustices presented. The accompanying information, such as the topic presented in the flash animation, is presented in a manner that is intellectually congruent and consistent with Logos. Each of these three modes of persuasion plays a vital role in a rhetorical balancing act and works in harmonious conjunction to influence the audience. Aristotle would be proud.howstuffworks.comoverpopulationisamyth.comhttp://blogs.hbr.org/research/2010/01 /haiti-e-la-psicologia-di-ch.htmlhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/30218108http ://mcckc.edu/longview/ctac/fallacy.htm