Environmental issues seem to be a thought stored in the sub consciousness of societies all over the world. Societies contemplate the complication and the risks but yet, take no action to resolve the problem. In Michael Pollan’s article Why Bother, he discusses the negligence that people have toward this issue. Pollan being one of those people that was ignorant, realized after Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth that he didn't want to change his light bulb. Pollan discusses the pros in changing your lifestyle to "green", can behoove society. While he also lists the cons of how one individual cannot subordinate their "evil twin, some carbon footprint doppelganger in Shanghai or Chongqing" (89) to do the same, you have to sometimes act as if acting will make a difference, even when you can’t prove that it will. (90). Pollan claims that small gradual goals that include support from pinnacle hierarchical representation and money can lead to a better future and change the way we live.
Pollan main argument discusses the “disease of the modern character”-technology. Technology, because of its ability to adapt to new forms of cheaper energy, has each assigned us each a specialization or a role. It has divided us and made us more “individualistic” in a sense. Technology voids the whole idea of labor and makes people’s lives less laborious. The very thing that gave civilization its blessing, will be the one that utterly destroys it. The reasons not to bother are many and compelling, at least to the cheap-energy mind. (91) Pollan ends his argument by declaring that one person can make a difference and trigger a viral social change" (93). It only takes one movement, to create a domino effect on the block, then community, then city, and so forth up until life on Earth will change for the better.
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.
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.
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