Called Home

In Barbara Kingsolver's piece, "Called Home" she describes her family's decision to move from Tucson and the Sonoran Desert to Appalachia. Kingsolver explains that humans are hard on ecosystems, like the desert, that struggle to provide life to its inhabitants at the best of times. People tend to make themselves feel welcome even in inhospitable environments but what repercussions does that have on the natural world around us? Kingsolver asks. She states the reason her family is moving to Appalachia is that she was too much of a guest as one person for the desert to support and then adding her husband and two children's lives into the mix made it worse; they wanted to "realign themselves with the food-chain".

Whiles I agree with Kingsolver on most points such as the harm diverting a river can do to the ecosystem that was meant to have that water, I do think she had an interesting way of approaching the topic. On page 4, I'm still not sure after several times reading over it if she is being sarcastic when she bashes Europeans for preferring natural and local foods and for not using GMO's in their products, or not. In my opinion, Europeans have been growing food naturally for large populations in condensed areas for centuries and have never deemed it necessary to splice the genes of sea creatures into their produce so who is actually doing it wrong? Us, probably. However, she did makes some very valid points such as the children of farmers tend to be more in the know when it comes to agriculture and will sometimes put the good of the land before their own comfort.

That being said, my hometown is a farming community and I know a large part of my environmental education in grade school revolved around how to not destroy the environment by farming. The pesticides and fertilizers subsidized farmers use run off in the rain water to local streams and creeks as well as into the water table. The Chesapeake bay and its inhabitants have been suffering greatly due to the pollution from farming. So, while I agree with Kingsolver's point, that we must be the guardians of the land and that living sustainably is better for everyone/thing involved, I do think she's leaving out some of the drawbacks to the argument she's trying to make.