Michael Pollan raises the big question about climate change, a topic that has been pandemic around the world. The article begins with Pollan describing his feeling after watching An Inconvient Truth. "Al Gore scared the hell out of me, constructing an utterly convincing case..."(88), it seems that this documentary cause Pollan to question his own cause and effect on how to help prevent the continuing rise of climate change. " I turn my life upside-down, start biking to work, plant a big garden,......, trade the station wagon for a hybrid,..."(89), these are all the ways Pollan sees that he could possible make a difference. By going the opposite direction and being more eco-friendly by diminishing his carbon-footprint and his own pollution in the air. Pollan continues to ask himself now about overseas imports and makes a reference to a New Zealand study which shows how they reduce the carbon footprint of food. The article also contains a very alarming bar graph which shows how anxious countries are when they view global warming as a problem. Brazil is the country with the most concern, while Egypt is the country with the least concern; the United States lands in the middle (90). Pollan continues his essay with a summary of a "blunt analysis" made by Wendall Berry. He notes that Berry saw that specialization was the biggest issue, the "disease of the modern character." (91).
Pollan then shifts his essay towards the audiences effect of being environmentally green and how their own effects can create a rippal effect. "If you do bother, you will set an example for other people" (92). Pollan believes that people will essentially begin to care about the environment and be more prudent with their own behavior. However rebuttals his previous paragraph by stating this idea of going green as a "passing fad and will lose steam after a few years, just as it did in the 1980s" (92). Pollan concludes his essay with the idea that people should take Vacel Havel (an communist Czechoslovakian) ideal and "conduct themselves as if they were to live on this earth forever...." (93), and begins to describe how the little things, like planting a garden, can make a world of a difference.
Pollan, Michael. "Why Bother?" New York Times 2008
Ramage John D., Bean John C., Johnson June. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing
New York: Pearson, 2006 (88-94)
Although a summary calls for a linear explanation, it asks the reader to omit certain details (examples, evidence, etc.) and focus on the main points. The graph is irrelevant to a summary--a summary is only concerned with the 'ideas' of the essay, rather than its rhetorical structure (which mentioning the "graph" would help).
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