Megan Nisbet: Berry-A Continuous Harmony #1

As I read through the first chapter of Berry's A Continuous Harmony, I realized that I got the wrong impression of him from reading his other book. This was probably because I didn't start from the beginning of his last book, but read the few chapters that sounded the most interesting to me. From reading the few chapters of his last book, I had the impression that Berry was merely looking at the flaws of society, and overlooked the help that machines have given us. However, after reading the first chapter of A Continuous Harmony, I realize how wrong I am. Page 10 gives a great example of how Berry truly feels about the thing we call "progress" in our world:

We will realize and live in the realization that nature is not inexhaustible and that, in fact, we have already used up more than our share of wealth. We will realize that we do not live on the earth, but with and within its life. We will realize that the earth is not dead, like the concept of property, but as vividly and intricately alive as a man or a woman, and that there is a delicate interdependence between its life and our own.

This passage really made me understand how Berry really feels about what we are doing to the earth. He is very concerned with stopping the harm that machines do to the earth now, and is concerned that we have gone too far to do anything about it. So instead of weighing the costs and benefits like I said in previous journal entries, I see what he means now, and I agree. Instead of still making progress the harmful way and trying to fix it after the fact, we should start off by making our progress in the healthy way for the earth. We can make machines that are good for the environment in the first place, instead of trying to fix the harm already done from the beginning.