"The Idea of a Local Economy" was a very detailed and well written article about the state of our economies and other aspects. After reading this article the most important thing that I thought author Wendell Berry brought up was the last line of the article, where she said, "without prosperous local economies, the people have no power and the land no voice." I think it is very important that in order for our economy to continue to grow for the benefit of many people that we support local economies. Large corporations may not always be a bad thing but as corporations in the 21st century are growing their seemingly focusing on what they can do to benefit themselves and no one else. They want the elite power over everything and everyone in their sector. We are running into competition problems as Barry talked about in the article. Like Barry discussed if the government is not going to protect the lives and freedom of the people then we as individuals need to protect ourselves. Through my own experiences my family has started to realize the importance their is of protecting ourselves and cherishing what we have. My mom is all about supporting local businesses. She is realizing the importance their is in local economy and through her I am able to see that it is not easy to be small and local and become a huge success. So I think we need to do our part to help the perserve the ones around us.
The Nobel Prize speech I read was by Al Gore called "A Planetary Emergency". Al Gore wrote this article to spread awareness on our global climate change. He got the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to inform the world about our man-made climate change. He states, "So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer... As a result, the earth has a fever". Changing our global climate is a very dangerous thing to be messing with. If our human pollutions continue at this rate we will run into some huge global issues with temperature, animals dying and waters rising with melting glaciers. We need to become aware of this problem and do our part to take little steps to help the climate from rising.
I really think that recycling would help a little but until people see direct negative effects on the environment, the people will not be motivated enough to do anything about it.
ReplyDeleteThe quote you used for The Idea of a Local Economy was an excellent choice for the passage. This sums up Wendell Berry's purpose because he is telling us to make a local economy because the corporations are ruling everything, and if we become independent from them we have our own voice.
ReplyDeleteIt is definitely more of an eye opener when you really step back and think about how much the big corps. walk all over the "little guy" like local businesses. It is good though to actually care about local economies and support local business. I try to whenever possible. As far as the Al Gore speech, I'm going to have to agree with the person that said until people see direct negative impact, not enough people will do anything about it. and by then it will probably be too late.
ReplyDeleteI too read the Al Gore speech. The quote you chose was one that also stuck out to me. "The Earth has a fever", that is such a powerful phrase, it allows everyone who has had a fever know what we are doing to this planet. I like the idea of personifying the earth, that was a great job of Pathos. You are right we need to start with little steps to end our global climate change problem. Starting with educating the people, and slowly working our way to a permanent and high yielding alternative and renewable energy source.
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