Wendell Berry’s life on Earth

This isn't news about home energy upgrades or rebates, but a remembrance of writer and farmer Wendell Berry, who died last week at 92. Berry lived on a farm in Henry County, Kentucky, and wrote more than 50 books of poetry, fiction, and essays, mostly by hand. He believed that fixing environmental problems started with small, personal acts of care for the land, not just political pressure on lawmakers.

Berry was also an environmental activist. He was arrested in 1979 for protesting a nuclear plant in Indiana and again in 2011 during a sit-in against mountaintop removal coal mining in Kentucky. In the 2010s he helped block a coal-fired power plant in Washington, D.C., and pulled his personal papers from the University of Kentucky after the school took a $7 million donation from a coal company. He also famously refused to own a computer, arguing in a 1987 essay that he didn't want technology to come between him and his work.

His outlook didn't fit neatly into any political camp. He believed in strong families and communities but didn't think government should legislate personal life, and he saw humans and nature as deeply connected rather than separate. That view of small, steady, personal responsibility toward the land is the main thread of his legacy, though it doesn't translate into any specific step for homeowners to take.