Journal Four by Zach Baker

In Wendell Berry's book In The Presence Of Fear there is a brief but powerful section titled "Thoughts In The Presence Of Fear". The chapter is split up into numbed, thought provoking points.The point that spoke to me the most was IX on page number 3. It brings to light some interesting and important points. In summary it explains that never before have we viewed technology as something that can hurt us or something that can be used against us. This word "technology" is not defined by Berry in this point but I believe the technology he is talking about are the new ways of communication in the world today. It is now easier than ever before to stay connected world wide. From a business stand point or a family that lives far away from each other this new technology is priceless. But there are also people in the world who use this technology to rally more terrorists and send video threats on a global scale rather than just intimidating the people around them, but also terrorizing people on a global scale through the new forms of communication. We must be aware that as technology grows and advances that the market is not limited to those who uses it properly and uses it to further mankind there are also people out there that will exploit it and use it to achieve terrible things.

In Wendell Berry's second essay I found one point to be very interesting and that was the idea of an environmental crisis on pages 12-14. This is something that you hear about quite a bit, using the environment at whim and collecting all of the natural resources without care or regard. He explains that fixing this environmental crisis will not be solved by a big corporation or any government but starts with the individual. He says that one reason we have this environmental crisis is that we have given all of our economic responsibilities to the government. In order to resolve this environmental crisis we must first in the words of Berry "if people begin the effort to take back into their own power a significant portion of their economic responsibility then their inevitable first discovery  is that there is no environmental crisis. It is not a crisis of our environs or surroundings; it is a crisis of our lives as individuals, as family members, as community members, and as citizens. We have an environmental crisis because we have consented to an economy in which by eating, drinking, working, resting, traveling, and enjoying ourselves we are destroying the natural god given world". (pg.14)  I believe this is very important because it is not giving any excuses for this crisis but it is putting the responsibility on the people to do something, to step up and change how things are going, to take responsibility for there actions and consumption.

The word that I have chosen to research is "environmental". This word has been brought up a many of times but what does it actually mean? According to Google the definition of environmental is "relating to the natural world and the impact of human activity on its condition". The reason this should be important is the mere fact that it is used so widely today. It is the discussion of big government, local government and even in schools. So it is important to understand what environmental even means, and why it effects everyone.

Lastly the question that I had involved the environmental crisis in America. So I just typed into Google "environmental crisis in America" and I was surprised at what I found. The first page to pop up was the Going to Green initiative.This initiative is not being proposed to the government, or lobbying in Washington, but it is starting in schools. This initiative is providing curriculum to the high school level of students and also to the university level. What kind of curriculum you ask? It is a standards based environmental education curriculum that has been receiving great feed back from teachers. This is just the first step into creating a culture that will hopefully one day solve the environmental crisis and make the world a better place. There is much more to read in the link below.
Going To Green Initiative