Apr 21

Enduring Mystery 2: Michael Pollan Edition

How did this article get published in the NYTimes? Someone must still be asleep at their desk.

Why bother? That really is the big question facing us as individuals hoping to do something about climate change, and it’s not an easy one to answer. I don’t know about you, but for me the most upsetting moment in “An Inconvenient Truth” came long after Al Gore scared the hell out of me, constructing an utterly convincing case that the very survival of life on earth as we know it is threatened by climate change. No, the really dark moment came during the closing credits, when we are asked to . . . change our light bulbs. That’s when it got really depressing. The immense disproportion between the magnitude of the problem Gore had described and the puniness of what he was asking us to do about it was enough to sink your heart.

There is much much more in the article worth reading.

6 thoughts on “Enduring Mystery 2: Michael Pollan Edition”

  1. It gets published because the best purchase the conservatives ever made was media.

    Are you really that surprised?

    Read my article from the jerk off in Delaware who thinks you get what you deserve if you don’t have a cell phone.

    America is filled with narcissistic a-holes who want to keep doing what they are doing…

  2. I’m currently reading Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” which, as you can imagine, has a special poignancy for me. I spend much of my professional life working with small farmers, and knowing the economic pressures put on them, much of those the result of tax law enacted to reward passive owners of large acreage, I am discouraged.

  3. Are you really that surprised?

    yes, because Pollan is a rather well-known figure from the area of sustainable/alternative agriculture and not really a partisan type.

    Also @ Snag: i really wish i could find some books by him. His essays have always been awesome, and i will be doing some reading on this topic in the days to come…

    For example:

    When William Prout isolated the big three macronutrients, scientists figured they now understood food and what the body needs from it; when the vitamins were isolated a few decades later, scientists thought, O.K., now we really understand food and what the body needs to be healthy; today it’s the polyphenols and carotenoids that seem all-important. But who knows what the hell else is going on deep in the soul of a carrot?

  5. given that people like Errol Morris and Michael Pollan still grace the pages of the Times, I can’t completely agree with you. Their news editing has gone to hell and their editorial board is stacked with semi-fascists, but all the other pages are still a notch above most news organizations.

  6. I’m reading “In Defense of Food” right now and Pollan is right, most of what’s being sold these days is not.

    But who knows what the hell else is going on deep in the soul of a carrot?

    Nuff said.

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