The Botany of Desire: Michael Pollan Writing Assignment

Michael Pollan: The Botany of Desire
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The Botany of Desire: Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan explores the relationship between man and nature and compares the complementary roles they play in their survival. He uses the apple, the marijuana, the tulip and the potato plants to draw the connection of the plants to human desires. In a unique way, he illustrates how people gratify the needs of plants as we satisfy our needs with different products from the plants. He reviews the history of domesticated plants and the culture of gardening and the manner in which plants have adopted with the environmental changes through time. Ironically, he illustrates the way humans may have fallen subject to the needs of plants as they remain fixated on responding to their basic needs of using these plants.
He explores four desires of human beings the apple, sweetness; marijuana, intoxication; the tulip, beauty; and potatoes, control. The book is divided into four chapters which are based on each crop. Across the four chapters, he explores themes such as genetic engineering, coevolution, environmental conversation, modern farming and biological biodiversity of plants with their environments (Pollan, 2001). Besides the comprehensive thematic elucidation in the book, he also deliberates on environmental conservation, which is a pertinent issue in the wake of climate change. This book report explores the main theme, environmental deliberations, and the relevance of the environmental issues that he raises in the book today.
Main Theme
Biological Diversity
Biological diversity is the main theme that Pollan addresses in The Botany of Desire. Biological diversity is essential for the establishment of an effective ecosystem. Leopold (1948) noted, “To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.” He implied that animals and plants in an ecosystem have adaptive functionalities that we often do not notice. These adaptive abilities play a significant role in keeping the ecosystem balanced. This is evident in the comprehensive disclosure of Pollan on the apple from its ancient origins in the Central Asian forests through Europe and eventually in America (Gorb, 2002). After the arrival in the U.S., it got purveyors such as John Chapman, who would later be appropriately recognized as Johnny Appleseed.
Johnny Appleseed was an apple grower who relied on seeds to reproduce his apples. Besides the widespread acceptance of the fruit as it found its way to America, apples grown from seeds were sour or bitter unlike those from their mother plant. The apple had more uses in the brewing of alcoholic beverages (Benjamin, Por & Budescu, 2016). The beverage did not satisfy the basic need for the apple, which led to the adoption of scientific grafting of the sweet apple plants on to other plants to produce sweet apples. Later on, the apples would be promoted internationally as the healthy fruit it is perceived to be today.
While the cloning of the apple plant helped it spread globally, it presented challenges in the resistance to disease and pests. The new geographical areas where it was grown and the method of reproducing the crop presented a variety of challenges that could only be solved by farmers using pesticides (Benjamin, Por & Budescu, 2016). The management of these challenges made it difficult for the people to develop scientific solutions to protect the plants from infestation by insects and diseases. There is an interdependency between man and apples, where man relies on the apple for its sweetness while man dissimilates the apple. Thus, it thrives through the ages with the diverse risks that the plant is prone to.
After establishing the evolution of the apple, he questions the motives and the drive which has led man to carry on with the apple consumption and cultivation culture. He establishes that man is wired to be drawn to sweetness, thus carrying on the species they find tasty along by innovating ways to help the plant survive the different environments and serve their own purpose (PBS Television, 2010). He, however, introduces a contradicting spin by alluding that the apple has been using its sweetness to survive through the ages. However, regardless of the control holders, man or the apple, the apple has survived and continues to thrive through biodiversity.
He explores the importance of biodiversity for the tulip, the potato, and the marijuana plant as well (Bilger, 2012). However, the marijuana plant raises interesting concerns on its modern uses and the various ways through which the plant has survived through the times. Being an illegal plant, marijuana is one among the fascinating plants for its medicinal and recreational uses after more than a century as an outlawed plant. Today, marijuana is used as a pain reliever widely in medicine and its managed use has been legalized in several states. The greatest power of the plant lies in its components that have the power to alter human consciousness.
The crackdown of marijuana after a widespread adoption of the weed smoking culture lead the enthusiastic users to grow it indoors. The culture resulted in a meticulous study of the environment where the plant thrived well and eventually resulted in the cloning of the plant to come up with more genetically resilient and desirable plants. Today, the perception of the use of marijuana has changed over tim...