"Why Bother" By Michael Pollan: About Climate Change

Climate change is an ongoing issue that is starting to concern Americans throughout the nation. Climate change is the heating of the earth and with the heating of the Earth. Pollan talks about how rapidly the ice caps are melting and how the ground is warming up because of climate change. Pollan also discusses the benefits of having a garden. I think that climate change and its effects on the world.

In the passage “ Why Bother” by Micheal Pollan talks about climate change and how it is going to affect the world if the way people do things doesn’t change. He talks about how if people in America decided to change then the people across the world aren’t going to do the same. For example, Pollan said, “ The Chinese car dealerships are weather the Americas was in the 1918”. With that being said the Chinese are going to take advantage of getting the cars that they have never really had before. Pollan also feels like even if people do start to change the way people do things it isn’t going to help the fact that the world is a couple of years behind on climate change issue.

Pollan talks about the ice caps melting rapidly since the rapidness of the ice caps melting that would cause the ocean to rise. With the ocean levels rising that is going to concern the coastal cities and they would have to evacuate their homes. The coastal cities having to evacuate their homes are not happening anytime soon since the ice caps aren’t melting. If by chance the ice caps do melt and coastal cities have to evacuate then there is going to be a shortage of places for them to go. Until that happens there is no need to worry about the ice caps and the rising sea levels. Another issue that goes along with the icecaps is the warming of the soil. I don’t think that the ground warming up is an issue. It is not an issue because farmers for certain crops put down plastic to warm up the soil to help the crops. If the ground was already being warmed up those farmers wouldn’t have to put down the plastic to help the crops to begin with. That is why I don’t think that the ground warming up is happening.

Gardening is a hobby that can help reduce your carbon footprint. With gardening, it calls for expensive tools and buying seeds. Let’s say that someone lives in the city and they want to make a difference but there isn’t enough space. In bigger cities, most people live in apartments and studios leaving them no room for a garden. If they wanted to plant a garden they could buy a plot in a community garden but that can be expensive. Pollan talks about people who want to try and help climate change with gardening could use their own compost. People using their own compost isn’t going to work because they are not going to take time to make it. Having a garden is also very time consuming and not everyone has the time and patience for one.

Going off the beef was another topic that was discussed in the article. I don’t think that going off the beef is going to make a difference. The farmers put hard work into the animals when they take care of them and try to get them to the butchers in the best shape that they can. The hard work that the farmers put into their livestock pays off when they take it to the butcher or a sale barn. I don’t see many people going off the beef just because it is going to help climate change. Yes, there are downfalls to having cattle when they fart they release methane which is a greenhouse gas. All ruminant release methane when they fart, so is everyone just going to stop eating because of the methane released when they fart. In recent studies, chicken is the most eaten meat. With that being said farmers are going to get more money out of cows than chickens. Cattle are one of the most profitable livestock and easiest to raise. All they need is a pasture to roam, freshwater and hay during the winter. The farmers are not going to give up farming cattle just because of chickens being better for the environment. Eating meat is very important to your health, it has different proteins and vitamins that help with growth and development within people.

So, combating climate change requires each of us to act decisively. It's now or never.