Why Bother?

Last month, Alexa Jay wrote a Wespeak questioning the value of doing the "little things" in our everyday lives to help minimize waste and energy consumption and reduce our carbon footprints. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma (he's speaking at Yale on Wednesday), asks these same questions in a New York Times Magazine piece called "Why Bother?" But ultimately, he argues, it is very necessary to bother. Here's a segment:

For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we’re living our lives suggests we’re not really serious about changing — something our politicians cannot fail to notice. They will not move until we do. Indeed, to look to leaders and experts, to laws and money and grand schemes, to save us from our predicament represents precisely the sort of thinking — passive, delegated, dependent for solutions on specialists — that helped get us into this mess in the first place. It’s hard to believe that the same sort of thinking could now get us out of it.

Take a look, and if you know her, forward it on to Alexa.