Why Bother

Michael Pollan’s Article “why bother?” brings up the controversial issue of global warming. He starts off by bringing up Al gore’s fear inducing speech “Inconvenient truth”, which rose awareness of the rising influence of global warming in our planet. His main problem with the presentation was when Al gore ask the people something as simple as changing the light bulbs they used in their homes. After the long inspiring speech, Pollan was disappointed with his simplistic solution. He expected a huge change in the way people produced and consumed given the importance of immediate alleviation to the environment gore posed. But the request in light bulb changes only took away from the gravity of the issue, and he begins to question, “why bother?” If no one will take matters seriously, what difference would it make if he changed the entirety of his life in the efforts to help the environment if more people than not would only continue their life as is and hence revise his efforts. Pollan uses poses many skeptical questions that challenge the usefulness of the change in one small portion of people while the rest of the world continue to do harm. He articulately answers his own questions, debunks fallacies that prevent change, and provokes incentives in his audience, the citizens of the world, for change while using statistics, emotion and credibility.

The first question Pollen brings to light is “why bother”, if each time he tries to propel his efforts in helping the issue his perpetual evil twin in Shanghai undoes his good doing because he “is eager to swallow every bite of meat I forswear and who’s positively itching to replace every last pound of CO2 I’m struggling to no longer emit.” Or when journalists or the vice president conclude that your hard work and attempts only satisfy your obligation to be virtuous, and that it also takes money and laws. He answers by firing back that while money and laws can provide significantly to the cause, it does nothing if there is no drive to change the way we live. This challenges the ad hominem fallacy in which your criticizer, being the media, attacks your personal traits, your virtue, in attempt to undermine your argument for change.

“Al Gore asks us to change the light bulbs because he probably can’t imagine us doing anything much more challenging” Pollan plays with the audience’s sense of ethics and uses that against them to get them to achieve his goal, which is to ultimately compel the world or even just a small portion of it to make a change. He uses ethos to pinpoint the real crisis of lifestyle and character that consequently affect the crisis in global warming and the environment. He explains the cheap energy mindset that helps people justify their excuse to do little to nothing for the environment. Where a person might not grow and small garden to save wastes because they don’t feel specialized to do so, and turn to buying something at a supermarket

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