Our Only World

"So far as I can see, the future has no narrative. The future does not exist until it has become past. To a very limited extent, prediction has worked. The sun, so far, has set and risen as we have expected it to do. And the world, I suppose, will predictably end, but all of its predicted deadline, so far, have been wrong."

Wendell Berry

Our Only World

Climate change is, in my opinion, the toughest challenge humanity will ever have to face. Part of the trouble stems from a slew of 'deniers,' refusing to acknowledge that there is a problem at all. The other difficulty comes from how complex the issue actually is. From greenhouse gasses, to energy production, rising sea levels, and thawing permafrost. There are so many different facets, so many things leading into the problem, and we must try to find a solution to every single part of the equation. 

In Our Only World, Wendell Berry examines how we use the land we have for production of food and timber, and has come to the conclusion that this method of production is unsustainable. In this collection of ten essays, he looks in depth into how we cannot sacrifice land health for production, and how we might remedy that, and reasons why we should support local farmers, who are more likely to take care of their land year after year. 

I thought that this collection was fantastic. It is so often that the climate change problem is written of as a "find that one big solution" problem, and its not. Not only must we find cleaner ways of producing energy and ways of making our energy system more efficient, we must find ways to use less (make your car last 20 years instead of buying a new one every 5), not only must we find ways to capture the methane emissions of cows, we must have less cows (eat less meat, outside wrote a great article on it). It is a fantastic solution, one that may not always jib with the consumer society that we live in. It will be difficult. But the consequences are to dire for us to balk at the challenge. As Dumbledore once said, "we must choose between what is easy, and what is right."