Lobster in a Bucket

Michael Polan on Bothering

Michael Polan has written some wonderful stuff. The Ominvores Dilemma and In Defense of Food are great, well-reasoned, and measured discussions of the ethics of eating in our modern era. He continues the persuasion with a great intro piece for the NYT magazine today. There are ethics to eating by the way. The organic movement, while commercialized, is rooted in truth. The mantra "buy local" also has merit. These things matter. Always nebulous statistics out there point to the dramatic carbon footprint that eating foods shipped from all over the world to america creates. This is just truth.

Polan points out several good things. Always practical, and humane, he simply suggests that all of us plant as much food in the ground for us to eat as we can. This is good advice. Local seeds planted locally has minimal impact a variety of ways. Polan also gave me a powerful challenge in regards to technology. Simply put, I hope technology will save us. I have no idea how to do very many things. Mostly I know how to read, research, and write, so I trust that someone out there will deliver me with cold fusion or some less fantastical technology. This may happen, but in the mean this sort of expectation does little but breed passivity. Because I can't solve the problem, I can't do anything. Polan argues persuasively that there's a lot more we can do that get better lightbulds.