"Why Bother?" Summary

     Michael Pollan's article on climate change discusses the pressing issues of global warming along with several solutions. He conveys an urgency in his article concerning the fate of our planet. He utilizes a great deal of statistics as well such as the one from James Hansen from NASA. Based on what Hansen says, we only have eight years to cut down on carbon emissions before we change our climate permanently. Pollan also discusses how we have become trapped in a world of specialists. We expect other people to do certain tasks for us such as butchers handling our meat, doctors curing our sickness, and politicians dealing with politics. He says that this has caused our society to grow complacent, and is the source of our "cheap-energy mind" that has placed the goal of going green so out of reach. The main reason most of us do not go green, he says, is because we do not think we can contribute. We believe we are useless because of the mindset of using specialist has plagued society of so long. He then attempts to persuade us by saying there are many courses of action that are feasible. He actually goes into great detail about how someone growing their own food would significantly assist in our society going green. The support he provides is, you buy less processed produce which consists of fertilizer from fossil fuels, you use less emissions by going to the grocery store, and because people would be exercising in their garden, they will not have to drive to the gym to keep in shape. He states that the garden idea will most likely cause a viral effect and people will eventually join the trend once they see all the benefits of it.