Another Turn of the Crank
0Wendell Berry's Another Turn of the Crank is about sustainability of the environment. He believes that you must first start at a local level then sustainability can be accomplished at a global level. This is the same idea that was expressed at the start of this course, "think globally, act locally," which means the consequences of our actions effect the world. As I address the some of the chapters in the book I will associate how Berry's ideas link into the material discussed in this class. Farming and the Global Economy is the first chapter of the book. He starts with the history of farmers during WWII. The farmers were quickly becoming a minority because the nation was not supportive of its farmers. They wanted to mass produce and buy cheap industrial goods. Farmers can't buy cheap machines, fertilizers, chemicals, and produce crops cheaply without losing any money. Wendell recommends two efforts to help the survival of the farmer. The first is up to the farmers, which they need to minimize their dependence on industrial supplies. Farmers need to replace purchased goods and services with natural health and diversity and with their own intelligence (5, Wendell). The second conce
The next chapter, Conserving Communities, opens with surprising numbers. Times magazine reported in 1910 there were 32 million farmers living on farms and in 1991 32 percent of farm managers and 86 percent of farmers did not live on the farm that they took care of. Now there isn't even an agricultural class. The book goes on to talk about "rape and run" logging in Montana. We talked about the "fly by night" corporations in class. Both are the same just different terminology. In Montana, the Champion International Corp. went on a tree cutting binge in Montana, which leveled forests. They then left leaving behind million of people unemployed and over 1,000 square acres stripped. This leaves people poor and the land trashed. This is only one case, but I know we talked about this in class. These corporations suck everything they can out of a community until there isn't anything left for them. They decided to leave one day and never think twice about the people. That's why Berry has come up with a list of actions a community can do to help their own community flourish. I won't list them all, but I will name a few important ones like: always put local needs first, develop small scale industries, strive to produce as much of the community's own energy as possible, see that the old and young take care of each other, and so on. These actions would help a community grow stronger in many ways. Conserving Forest Communities deals with forest
Some common words found in the essay are:
Global Economy, Henry County, Conserving Communities, Berry's Crank, International Corp, Health Membership, That's Berry, Kentucky Farming, Preservation Humanity, Forest Communities, talked class, live local, buy cheap, class discussions, forest economy, henry county, local level, own community,
Approximate Word count = 983
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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