Through Containment and Beyond

He recoiled at the “rapid decline of family farming and the reckless raiding and ruining of some of the finest agricultural soil on the world’s surface,” condemning lustful developers and industrial farming moguls who exhaust the earth’s fertility with their reckless, short-sighted exploits. Identifying environmental decay as the single greatest threat to urban-industrial societies, he proposed the establishment of an International Environmental Agency. Said agency would advise—but not order—the world’s governments (for he opposed the United Nations since its inception). The “he,” here, may well be Wendell Berry.