Summary Of Our Only World

Our Only World, written by Wendell Berry, addresses environmental issue, as well as homosexuality, abortion, and violence. Wendell Berry wrote Our Only World not only to make these issues known, but to also provide possible solutions to these issues and to show that we, as human begins, are the ones truly responsible for fixing these issues. Berry shows this by constantly focusing on how we view the world (and how that directly impacts the environment) and by teaching us that the first steps of saving the environment is by keeping things local, rather than attempting to fix things on a global scale. With this book, Berry hopes that people will take what he says in to heart and will being to take the steps necessary to slow the process of the destruction …show more content…
He also shows that once this forest was industrialized, it was torn to bits in order to extract all of its marketable goods which in this case is the standing timber. By “harvesting” (Berry, 25) all of the lumber in the area, they have neglected to think of the forest and the long term needs that the forest could have provided. If they had cared for the forest’s long- term economy, the trees in the area would have been increasingly marketable at each logging (Berry, 29), thus helping not only the environment, but also our economy. When we focus on the environmental needs on an area, we tend to get better supplies to make our products with. This is because “the good health of part of the forest depends on the good health of the whole forest” (Berry, 34). So, when we focus on respecting the forest in its entirety by not taking everything from it therefore leaving it barren, we can get the best results from it. However, most enterprises have not realized this and have continued to destroy the land in order to get the “parts” that they find valuable. This, as berry states, “can only lead to exhaustion” (Berry,