{"id":268,"date":"2018-04-14T08:08:35","date_gmt":"2018-04-14T08:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/?p=268"},"modified":"2018-04-14T08:09:18","modified_gmt":"2018-04-14T08:09:18","slug":"why-reusable-bags-and-an-all-natural-diet-arent-the-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/2018\/04\/14\/why-reusable-bags-and-an-all-natural-diet-arent-the-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Reusable Bags and an All-Natural Diet Aren’t the Answer"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Defense of Food<\/span><\/i>, by Michael Pollan, outlines the best ways for people to eat for both their own well-being and the well-being of the planet. His encouragement of a change in personal habits (in this case food habits) is very much a microcosm of modern environmental and food movements.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pollan\u2019s individualistic approach to the way we eat and interact with food is narrow-minded, to say the least. Furthermore, the solutions he offers are, by no means, feasible for everyone, he instead focuses on means of action for the upper-middle class. He speaks of eating locally sourced food and buying more fresh produce, activities that are far easier for those who have enough time and money to turn fruits and vegetables into meals. Moreover, for those who can\u2019t afford the time or money to cook these meals, he doesn\u2019t provide another way forward. He addresses income inequality and injustice in the food system briefly, but fails to offer means of remediation to the food system for those affected by said inequality and injustice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTaking Back a Little Bit of Control\u201d<\/span><\/a>, a study done by MacKendrick and Stevens, better illustrates how removed people really are from environmental issues. The idea that change will come in the form of consumption and the apathy towards what we cannot easily change are, together, indicative of a problem that will not be resolved with a change in diet or lifestyle. Though some action is better than none, individual actions alone will by no means fix the problems that plague our environment and food system. When we blame global warming on people that don\u2019t recycle, people that don\u2019t have reusable bags, and people that don\u2019t drive electric cars, we absolve bigger institutions and corporations of their own shortcomings in the realm of environmental consciousness, the impacts of which are often felt far more than any plastic water bottle that failed to find its way to a recycling bin.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Green consumerism<\/span><\/a> encourages increased consumption of goods, just because they\u2019re \u201cbetter\u201d for the environment. However, many people fail to recognize that things that are \u201cbetter than the alternative\u201d are not necessarily \u201cgood\u201d for the environment. Furthermore, \u201cgreen\u201d products are often just a ploy by businesses to find another way to profit. Companies will spend money advertising their new \u201cgreen\u201d product, but that money could have been spent buying carbon offsets, or finding ways to make their production process less water intensive, or almost anything else. These companies don\u2019t care about the environment, but they know that people who do will make them more money.<\/span><\/p>\n

Environmentally minded organizations are partially to blame for this. Individuals can often do little more than donate, buy ecologically friendly products, or contact representatives; it\u2019s no surprise that they feel that their best means of enacting change is with their dollar. I don\u2019t think real and effective change can happen at the individual level, but I also don\u2019t think corporations will ever truly put the well-being of the planet ahead of their profits; for this reason, I don\u2019t necessarily know what the best way to move forward is, but I\u2019m nearly certain it\u2019s larger than hybrid cars and recyclables.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan, outlines the best ways for people to eat for both their own well-being and the well-being of the planet. His encouragement of a change in personal habits (in this case food habits) is very much a microcosm of modern environmental and food movements. Pollan\u2019s individualistic approach to the way we eat and interact… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-movements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions\/280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}