Climate Change In Michael Pollan's Why Bother?

Global Warming is an issue demanding of world wide attention, yet widely ignored. Global Warming will change our planet drastically yet under the benefit of cheap energy we do nothing to shrink our carbon footprints. Many ignore the topic of Climate Change as they don’t believe in it, or simply don't understand why they should bother. This is exactly what Michael Pollan trys to argue in his article, “Why Bother?”, published by The New York Times,
He argues that every common man should do their part to slow the advancement of climate change. Pollan's cites “crisis of lifestyle” and “specialization” as two reasons no real effort has been made by a majority to stop global warming. He writes about how one man changing his ways and shrinking his
carbon footprint ultimately will not help prevent climate change. However, this one man's influence on his neighbors could start a chain reaction to benefit our whole world. While there is no proof that this will work, he suggests people do it and act as if it will in order to give it its best chance. One way Pollan claims it could be done is in the popularization of personal gardens, he claims this would not only lower one's carbon footprint, but other health benefits would come too.
Climate change is arguably a large issue facing anyone under 40, the people who will most likely live to see its consequences.
Every scientist will agree and anyone else who has any idea what climate change is. Through this, Pollan answers the question, “Why Bother?” but his true purpose, inspiring people to actually “Bother” fails. His ignorance of the lower class and humanity's subconscious Moral Balancing combined with his use of cheap scare tactics makes his arguments fall flat and inspires readers to roll their eyes and enjoy their plant destroying comforts while they can.
Pollan argues that if everyone were to plant their own personal gardens, we could all cut our carbon footprints. Let’s narrow this argument to just America, requiring approximately 318 million people to grow a garden. 13% of these people are over the age of 65 and maybe unable to work in the conditions required to maintain a garden. An even bigger percentage of Americans can’t afford to grow a garden. According to the 2010 census, fifty percent of the American population is low
income.
While Pollan claims a garden, giving up meat, or observing the Sabbath is no expense, this is simply not true for a low income family. The cost of seeds, a place to grow them, the water and fertilizer to feed them, and the proper soil to grown them in is far more expensive than filling a bag with vegetables for $10 at the local grocery store. Pollan's whole article is written from the mindset of a privileged upper income man who is ignorant of certain costs. Because of this, he only has 50% of Americans able to follow his solution.
For the 50% of americans who can afford it, planting a Garden may even be counter productive when they subconsciously start to balance this good deed with bad ones. Moral Balancing is the subconscious act of counting all the good and bad acts and, if the good acts start to outweigh the bad, feeling as if you can cheat a little to even the scale. Now, this changes based on the mindset of the person. Someone who believes in a strict definition of right and wrong is more likely to continue doing good or sometimes bad things. Someone who believes that the end justifies the means however, is likely to balance their good and bad deeds at a set moral point.
While it would be nice to believe that everyone is strict in their definition of right and wrong and more likely to commit good, we’re speaking of the upper class. Therefore, I am fairly unconvinced.
With this psychological factor in mind, Those who are able to own a garden and place solar panels on the top of their homes will be the most like likely to buy an Escalade and run the shower a little longer. If these acts are subconscious, they may accidentally cause a person to over compensate and actually become worse than if they had never tried to reduce their carbon footprint at all.
So what happens if his whole premise of owning a garden doesn’t work?
With this argument proven faulty, what Pollan admitted was an already unbalanced scale tipps even farther.
Pollan's article is ineffective in its purpose and actually counteracts his goals. His use of cheap scare tactics could be admissible if his arguments remained intact but without them further the question of, “Why Bother?”. If an NASA climate scientist says we only have eight years to cut carbon emissions and you can’t provide me a solution, why should I bother? If Al Gore thinks the most challenging thing I can do is change my lightbulbs, why should I bother? Pollan tries but ultimately fails to prove why we should bother to do
anything.
In Pollan's article, his ignorance of what the lower class can afford and moral balancing are the judge and jurry, while his own use of scare tactics is the executioner of this argument. While Pollan seems to scoff at Al Gore asking for everyone to switch light bulbs, perhaps Al Gore has a better handle on what the American public can afford and on our common psych.