Why Bother Michael Pollan Analysis

American author and journalist, Michael Pollan, in the article titled, “Why Bother?”, published in The New York Times Magazine, addresses the topic of environmental issues and argues that the phrase, “why bother?”, is what is keeping society from changing the ways citizens use up resources. His main focus of reasoning is supported by his idea that specialization has a significant role in reducing the average consumer’s chance of changing their lifestyle and also highlights that planting your own garden would be a task which in turn would benefit the consumer in many ways, while also decreasing their carbon footprint size. He concludes that these actions taking place could have a chain reaction that would spread these practices across the nation and lead to positive impacts on the environment.

Pollan uses a serious tone in the article to persuade the audience. The subject of the article is climate change and he keeps a serious tone throughout the entire article. He keeps the serious tone because he does not want people to overlook this problem because it is such a phenomenon. He also uses a sarcastic tone in a few sentences. He uses the sarcastic tone because he wants the audience to look at it and think about it on their own perspectives. In the article, Pollan explains about how he could turn his life around and use less resources. Pollan then says, “what would be the point when I know full well that halfway around the world there lives my evil twin, some carbon-footprint doppelgänger in Shanghai or Chongqing who has just bought his first car that is eager to swallow every bite of meat I forswear and who is positively itching to replace every last pound of CO2 I am struggling no longer to emit.” On the flipside, someone on the other side of the world will be doing the exact opposite. Therefore, he is saying this in a sarcastic tone because he wants people to realize that it will take more than one person to solve

The thesis of “Why Bother?” is “Why bother? That really is the big question facing us as individuals hoping to do something about climate change, and it’s not an easy one to answer.”

In the article “Why Bother” by Michael Pollan, the author addresses the issue of climate change and what we as individuals can do. Pollan starts by making the primary assertion that it is up to each individual to change their habits of mind to curtail the current climate crisis. He believes that by the simple act of gardening it will severely help the situation at hand. During the course of Pollan’s article he gives many examples of what he believes we are doing wrong and how we can change. Through the use of many different rhetorical strategies he is able to support his case very effectively. Pollan clearly states the situation and purpose of his article, along with minor and major claims to support his ideas.

Is global warming a moral dilemma? Is it the public policy problem from hell? In "The Environmental Issue from Hell," Bill McKibben uses many of such phrases en route to arguing for a new approach to global warming. By discussing hell and morals, the reader’s mind is already equating it with two heavily debated issues. Therefore, we begin to question their existence and how we should deal with the subjects. McKibben wisely chooses these disputes to represent his main concerns: the ways in which consumerism affects the global ecosystem, and the impact of humans on the environment. McKibben presents a solution on how to handle each of these environmental issues, utilizing both the people and the government.

Michael Pollan has recognized that there is an issue in today’s society, and that issue is climate change. Within the article of,” Why Bother”, by Michael Pollan, he talks about an effect that society itself may have inflicted upon themselves. But looking at the actual reasoning behind why the climate is changing is baffling. In the text of “Why Bother”, Michal Pollen talks about climate change is on us, yet before reading the text, I assumed that maybe climate change was just destiny, and continues to happen because it’s due. Yet now I believe that we as a people, have actually caused climate change to progress quicker than as planned. Pollan explains that we as a people have to be active in the change we want to see. I can say I concur and

American political activist Jody Williams once said “There’s a mythology that if you want to change the world, you have to be sainted like Mother Teresa or Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But ordinary people with lives that go up and down and around in circles can still contribute to change.” In an excerpt from his essay “Why Bother?” published in the New York Times Magazine, American public intellectual Michael Pollan reveals his goal to convince ordinary American citizens that they are capable of changing their behavior in order to reduce America’s carbon footprint. Through the use of the four rhetorical elements situation, purpose, claim, and audience, Pollan aspires to have his readers gain a greater understanding that the environmental crisis is “at heart a crisis of character” (Pollan 766). However, although Pollan targets the correct audience to carry out his purpose, he fails to provide proper evidence to support his claim that individual contribution matters.

That is a really deep question. For this paper, I wanted to understand the climate change issue better. I wanted to understand how humans acknowledge (or even deny) climate change, still yet do nothing to remedy the problem. Most people are guilty of this. I, myself am guilty of this. As Nordhaus and Shellenberger state in their article, the problem seems to be a thing that will only be a priority once it is in our faces. Rust says that these films create an awareness that is somewhat being lost in this postmodern globalization. The Day After Tomorrow, Soylent Green, and The Mist all send a message that could get us thinking about cutting back to prevent climate change. But as my topic has illustrated, it seems a bit farfetched that change would actually

Climate scientists have come to the deduction that human activity is responsible for the Earth’s surface temperature rising at a very rapid rate over the past thirty years and the very serious implications that could result. The purpose of this paper is to answer why there are an astounding number of Americans that deny global warming despite the overwhelming consensus in the scientific community. The hypothesis of this paper is: due to America’s shift from a functionalist perspective to a postmodern perspective; the population is more susceptible to information released by self interest groups attempting to sway public opinion. The study was a compilation of diverse methods. Using qualitative as well as quantitative research, the author came

When I polled a few of my friends about “what is the single most critical problem facing us today?” I got a frequent response that’s not so shocking, climate change. So why climate change? Why not obesity, or population control, or education? While all of those are problems that deserve discussion, no single topic is so fundamental to us as humans as climate change. In 2007 Al Gore stated in his person of the year interview that “Today we 're dumping 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the environment, and tomorrow we will dump more, and there is no effective worldwide response. Until we start sharply reducing global-warming pollution, I will feel that I have failed.” (Walsh) Perhaps the paradigm has changed. Climate change is now talked about at every level of government, in large and small businesses, and communities across the globe. It’s a topic that functions to affect our economy and our environment. Moving forward, it’s important to understand why our way of life will be affected by the way we tackle these issues surrounding climate change. Climate change is the single most important issue affecting the human race today due to its widespread impact on our survival; impacting food sources, transportation, weather, geography and other life forms on the earth.

One quote that particularly stuck with me throughout the book Changing Planet, Changing Health was on page 223: "Spend enough time pondering climate change, and the magnitude of the challenge can begin to overwhelm anyone. There's a daunting array of numbers and trends, choices and consequences. Much of what we do as modern humans contributes to the problem, little by little by little.” This resonated with me strongly for many reasons. One reason is that I’ve been ignoring climate change, and I’ve noticed most of the population do the same. Climate change is often pushed to the back of minds because it’s daunting. The book describes it as “overwhelming”, and there’s no better word for the feeling of this inevitable disaster that really is not inevitable, but will never be prevented by mankind due to our greed and selfish. And when I say ‘our greed’, I do include myself. I am without a doubt wasteful, it would take 4.8 Earths to sustain my lifestyle, according to an Ecological Footprint activity. That’s a large quantity of resources that I did not even know I used.

“Awareness of this global threat reinforced public concern and environmental problems and thereby provided environmental activists, scientists, and policy makers with new momentum in their efforts to promote environmental protection.” (McCright, 2000) This statement draws line to the potential benefits that would be received if the pro-global warming theorists were to draw enough attention to the issue. Driven by social empowerment and

Climate change is an issue that affects all life on Earth and is a major concern among researchers across a variety of fields. There is quite little argument against the possibility of mass disaster if human beings continue to consume fossil fuels in the same way we have been since the late 1700s (i.e. the Industrial Revolution). To mitigate the severity of climate change, many different courses of action have been suggested. Dale Jamieson discusses two of these in his article Ethics, Public Policy and Global Warming, and these strategies are what this paper will be focusing on.

This article critically examines the ways in which individuals could help reduce the impacts of global warming. The author challenges that every individual could significantly minimise the effects of global warming by adopting to a more responsible lifestyle.

I recently heard a quotation from a pediatrician who was stating: “It is ten times more difficult being a child than an adult, due to the many possibilities and choices you ought to be making”. Now, my own thesis on this is, when you are a teenager, you can multiply the diffuculty by a factor of fifty. A lot of young people find it very strenous taking the last step towards adulthood and their own independence. Especially when you have parents that, unconsciously or not, do not allow you to do so.