Brief Summary Of The Essay 'Why Bother'

The Thought about Food
Mankind differentiates itself from other species in its willingness to exhaust its environment in order to satisfy its immediate needs of the essential components: food and water. In order to satisfy the demands of an ever-increasing global population, we rely on an international, industrial food system. When it comes to global warming we think about how climate change will impact farming, but not how farming will impact climate change. The impact of the food system on global warming is enormous. It accounts for roughly one-third of the human-caused global warming effect (Lappé 854). Further aggravating the situation, the food we consume is processed leaving it with fewer nutrients and proteins. Anna Lappé in the essay “The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork” and Michael Pollan in the essay “Why Bother?” explain the ongoing
issues and attempt to get people to begin thinking and taking action. Examining each of these writer’s arguments and suggestions will help us understand how small changes to our collective lifestyle can reduce global warming and improve our health and well-being.
Lappé discusses the food sector as a critical component of climate change and details how the food industry is leaving its footprint on the environment.
A few examples include emission created by industrial farming processes, land use change, emission produced by livestock (Lappé 854). One of the biggest factors in land use change is the emergence of palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia. The problem is the plantations are not sustainable and harm the environment. Palm oil is used in a wide range of foods to make them creamier and has become a staple of the industrial food system. The enormous demand for palm oil exacerbates the land depletion problem. Too often, the land used for palm oil trees comes at the expense of tropical forests. Palm oil is not the culprit, but the huge amount of land required for palm oil plantations is. Certified sustainable palm oil produced on plantations that comply with the environmental standards of the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is the solution. This is not a perfect solution yet, as loopholes exist in this protocol, but it is a step in the right
direction.
Lappé criticized increased production of livestock and expanding pasture lands and croplands for feed that is poorly managed and causes deforestation (Lappé 856). Lappé states the food industry supports an industrial model of operation as opposed to a traditional and natural model of raising livestock. The food industry insists its industrialized process is more efficient when it is just the opposite. In traditional farming, a cow will naturally convert grass, inedible to humans, into high-grade protein. In industrial production, cows are grain fed and the amount of protein that is passed on to humans is trivial. It is estimated that it takes at least seven pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef (Lappé 857). The inefficiency does not end there. The meat produced from grain-fed beef is very high in fat and very low in nutrients. Meat produced from grass-fed cattle is leaner and full of nutrients. Americans consume eight ounces of meat a day that is twice the global average. Why do Americans eat so much meat? That is one of the questions we must ask ourselves.
Lappé also mentions how agriculture contributes to global warming, with a large effect from methane and nitrous oxide as well as carbon dioxide (Lappé 858). Industrial farms pollute the local air and ground water, and they over-consume fossil fuels and degrade soil quality. On a macro scale, industrial farms have an enormous impact on global warming and climate change. Another factor is the importing and exporting of meat. Approximately 8 to 10 percent of beef consumed in the United States is imported from other countries while 11 to 14 percent of the beef raised in the United States is shipped abroad. The international, industrial meat production system has a significant impact on carbon emissions. Unfortunately, industrial processed foods, dairy products, bottled drinks and the transportation of all of these items contribute to environmental degradation as well. The global industrial food system damages our environment and wastes our resources.
Lappé writes, “Once we gaze directly at the connection between food, farming, and global warming, we see plenty of cause for hope”(Lappé 860). She suggests small-scale organic and sustained farms can significantly reduce the sector’s emission (Lappé 860). It starts with consumers creating demand for organic food and sustainable farming as well as support for local food policies. Lappé established reasons and identified solutions to help develop my belief that the world would benefit by creating healthier ways for the consumers to eat while eliminating damage to the environment.
Michael Pollan argues we can not wait for the government to solve the problem of how we are living our lives (Pollan 873). Pollan draws attention to questions that most of us have faced when it comes to global warming or any other global issue, “why bother?”. He answers this question by saying that the climate-change crisis is at its very bottom a crisis of lifestyle – of character, even (Pollan 872). Pollan mentions writer W.Bell and his recognized problem in industrial civilization – specialization, where each of us is assigned a specific and limited role in society. Cheap energy was a driver of specialization and Pollan calls it the “cheap energy mind” that translates everything into money. Pollan is trying to tip the scale of the “cheap energy mind” in defining why you should bother. He encourages everyone to have a garden to begin to heal the split between what you think and what you do (Pollan 875).
Both of the authors agree that changes in how we produce food and what food we consume would benefit our health and the environment. We, as individuals, need to make a change. First, we need to insist on sustainable agriculture that will reduce carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Sustainably produced, locally grown, natural food means fewer chemicals, pesticides, antibiotics and hormones in the food. Second, we need to limit the amount of meat we consume. It is just an unhealthy, inefficient source of protein that is harmful to the environment. We need to encourage eating grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. We need to be conscience of the world around us and think about the things we do and the effect we have on the environment. It is a moral imperative “once our personal connection to what is wrong becomes clear, then we have to choose: we can go as before, recognizing our dishonesty and living with it the best we can, or we can begin the effort to change the way we think and live” (Pollan 873). We need to change our mindset. We need to take action and do the right thing. The choice is ours to live and eat in a responsible, sustainable and healthy manner.

Works Cited
Lappé, Anna. “The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork.” From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A text and Reader 2nd ed. Eds. Greene, Stuart, and Lindsky, April. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2012. 852-865. Print.
Pollan, Michael. “Why Bother?” Greene and Lidinsky. From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A text and Reader 2nd ed. Eds. Greene, Stuart, and Lindsky, April. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2012. 870-876. Print.