Changing the Cheap Energy Mind

Michael Pollan’s article, “Why Bother?”, in the New York Times Green Issue is ostensibly about growing a garden, but there are larger issues looming in the shadows of that leafy produce. In exhorting the reader to plant and grow their own food he leads us through ideas of community, the possibility of viral change, the problems of specialization and the “cheap energy mind.”

Much of Michael’s discussion orbits the phenomenon of cheap energy, the advent of which allowed our specialization (I type about food, he grows food, she delivers food) and trancendence of community (who needs neighbors when you have DVR?). The mentality created by this cheap energy hamstrings our attempts at personal responsibility and drives our energy policy toward replacement rather than substantial lifestyle change.

Michael’s suggestion to grow a garden seems trivial in the face of this high-minded historical discussion and one is led to wonder, as the title of the piece suggests, “Why Bother?” With such engrained resistance and seemingly insourmountable global apathy, how will growing a garden be anything more than a symbolic guesture?

Well, I’ll let Michael tell you. Give it a read.

Nic Darling is well-disposed to postgreen and its proprieter. He is also well-disposed to beer, puppies and disc golf.  Quite the company you keep postgreen.