A Couple of Books

After finishing Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard I started back in to The Way of Ignorance by Wendell Berry. Haven't finished Ignorance yet, but I have been struck by how the two books dovetail in many ways.

Chouinard told tales of how he climbed and created a business, but he hammered away most about the responsibility we have to the world we live in, both individually and corporately. He gave details how Patagonia has been shaped as a company to minimize its footprint and damage to the world. He admits there is damage, but effort must be made to have as little impact as possible.

This is one of the first Berry books I have read and it is a collection of essays and talks he has given. The theme of localism comes through loud and clear, but the idea is localism builds whereas the opposite, globalism, has no one being responsible for what happens. Soil and water and people are materials to be used, not built. The end result is we all die somewhere in the future.

As Chouinard says, "The problem is like [environmentalist] David Brower said, there’s no business to be done on a dead planet."