Why Bother?

Michael Pollan wrote an editorial recently in the New York Times entitled "Why Bother?" which addresses the basic question of "Is eating local or walking to work really going to reduce my carbon footprint?" He raises the question that for every effort we make here is it offset by someone else on the planet.

He argues that it's easy to be overwhelmed by the statistics and get into a feeling of helplessness. He says that "cheap energy" and "specialization" have given us global warming and fostered a feeling of not being able to provide for ourselves. Which brings us to the idea of the local or backyard garden and growing your own food and breaking down the feeling that food must be provided by others.

Pollan writes:

"But there are sweeter reasons to plant that garden, to bother. At least in this one corner of your yard and life, you will have begun to heal the split between what you think and what you do, to commingle your identities as consumer and producer and citizen.

Chances are, your garden will re-engage you with your neighbors, for you will have produce to give away and the need to borrow their tools.

The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world."

Go plant that garden.