Firewood+AB

Journalism of John McPhee Andrew Bartlett After reading the article “Firewood” by John McPhee you are able to understand how he writes in a unique way for someone doing environmental activism. McPhee writes the article about the people of New York and how they did not care about wood and the destruction that can take place when cutting it down in large amounts. All the people thought about was how could they now get the cheapest new source of heat to heat their home during the oil crisis. This showed McPhee’s difference in writing style because he did not make the article about the oil crisis and how people became in a panic for what they would have to do to heat their home this coming winter. What he did was look at people from the side and look into the way people react and act to the situations they are put into. McPhee knew that the people of New York did not know about wood or the production of it. But, what he wanted to know was how people come to understand something new in their lives when the old way of doing things change. He also left out about major facts that most people would fill their article with like the cost of the oil and how the production had slowed down meaning that less people who needed it could not obtain it. This was because he did not want to be considered a environmental activist because he does not think of himself as one. He likes to write down all of the facts and let people decide for themselves what the article is about and not tell them what to think. This is why he uses the stories and life experience of the people on the street of New York for the story. He wanted his readers to get the sense that the problems go much deeper than environmental problems. McPhee was showing how the life style that the first world has created for its self is very destructive and people don’t seem to care about the damage they are causing until things start to effect themselves. That’s why looking at people who have no clue about firewood is very important because it shows how people keep a closed mind to things that don’t matter. The people on the street made such interesting and seemingly stupid questions because they did not know any better because they had been brought up not to think about where their oil had come from. Society makes it so that you just know that it came from somewhere else and you don’t need to know how or what is being done to get the oil. This same thing has happened with wood because we have started to use more of it up then we replant, meaning that our forests are getting smaller sans people don’t think about the consequences of this because it does not seem to be that important in our everyday lives right at the moment.