Summary of "Why Bother?"

     In Michael Pollan's 2008 New York Times Magazine article "Why Bother?" he makes the argument for why any individual should bother to "change their light bulbs"(88) when it comes to going green and doing one's part to save the earth from rapid climate change that has arrived well ahead of schedule. Pollan gives multiple ideas regarding how one can actually "bother" and take control of their "personal environmental responsibility"(89) to help reduce global warming and slow down the rapid "warming and melting"(90) that is occurring much faster than what scientists' projections read a decade ago. Unfortunately, Pollan asserts, many individuals feel it is too late to do something on a personal level that makes a big enough difference to actually slow this warming and melting. Many people, no matter how virtuous they are in their pursuit to slow the rapid climate change due to global warming, feel as if "laws and money"(90) are also needed to make profound changes in how we live to solve this climate-change crisis. Pollan breaks down this notion by claiming that laws and money are not adequate enough on their own to solve the problem at hand; instead, solving the problem concerns the "sum total of countless little everyday choices" made by the people to change the way we live and think about the environment. Pollan wants people to take it upon themselves to make an effort and transform their lifestyle into one that supports the reduction of the rapid climate change placed before us. Pollan urges people to take this environmental problem upon themselves and act on it despite the growing carbon emissions from other nations and those clueless people who squander valuable fossil fuels in their own lives every day. Specialization, brought about through the use of cheap energy, has obscured the "lines of connection" (91) in our everyday lives and allowed people to overlook their everyday acts that bring about many-times severe consequences that foster the rapid climate change and hinder our efforts to solve the environmental problem we face today. As specialists, Pollan finds that we rely too much on the "experts" to solve our own problems when the answer is right in front of us. Regardless of all the excuses and reasons we have to not bother when it comes to the environment, Pollan still encourages his readers to go green and he starts his reasoning by stating that "you will set an example for other people"(92). Pollan feels that a process of "viral social change"(92) is needed when it comes to reducing the climate change at an individual level. Even if one does not feel he is going to make a different he still needs to do his part anyways in the hopes that others will catch on and do their part as well. When it comes to reducing one's carbon footprint in their own everyday lives, Pollan describes how refusing to develop a cheap-energy mind by finding one thing to do that can help the environment that is "real and particular"(93) has the ability to "offer its own rewards"(93). One of the examples Pollan gives in the article is the ability to produce our own food through the use of vegetable gardens. By doing this we could not only reduce the amount of original solar technology we use, but learn to not be so dependent on specialists to provide for ourselves. Perhaps the most important reason to grow a garden, however, is the idea that "you will have begun to heal the split between what you think and what you do, to commingle your identities as consumer and producer and citizen"(94). Pollan is looking to restore the relationship between people and the earth, one small vegetable garden at a time.

                                                Work Cited

Pollan, Michael. "Why Bother?" New York Times Magazine 20 Apr. 2008:

    

     19+.Rpt. in The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing. John D.

    

     Ramage, John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 6th ed. New York:

  

     Pearson, 2012. 88-94. Print.