In this article, Albrecht Schad, professor at the Freie Hochschule Stuttgart, finds clear words for the state of the earth. He also recalls Goethe's words: In life, everything always has to do with everything. You can find out what this means for us and planet Earth in this article.
Did you know that we inhabit a «planet of chickens»? There are currently about 23 billion chickens on earth, three times as many as humans. They are being kept for us humans. There never was such a ubiquitous bird species. The number of chickens also far exceeds that of birds living in the wild, whose numbers are declining.
In the US almost a third of all birds have disappeared in the last fifty years and in Germany insect numbers have gone down by 75 percent. We are not only experiencing human-made climate change but also human-made mass extinction at a rate probably unseen in the last 50 million years. Biological diversity is declining at an unprecedented rate. There is more human-made material such as concrete, tarmac, plastic, metal, paper, glass, etc. in the world now than the combined biomass of all living creatures. And the biggest problem is that we are not even aware of this.
So what?
So, we have got to a point where, if humankind was eliminated from the earth tomorrow, there would still be geological evidence of an extraordinary event having taken place now in a million years’ time: a fundamental and unprecedented shakeup of nature. From geology we know of five mass extinctions. We are now experiencing the sixth.
We could of course shrug our shoulders: «So what? It has happened five times before.» But no! The difference this time is that there has been no volcanic eruption, no asteroid impact, but we humans are causing it.
The changing climate, too, is dramatic. In the summer of 2021 temperatures in Greece and Turkey rose to 50 degrees Celsius, causing widespread forest fires. The US west coast also burned, as it had done the year before; again at an apocalyptic rate. In the same year storm front Bernd swept over Central and Western Europe bringing torrential rain; the floods, in the German rivers Ahr and Erft for instance, caused unprecedented devastation.
In 2022, many parts of the world again saw as many extreme weather events and natural disasters. Europe experienced the hottest summer on record (with temperatures of more than 40°C in Hamburg and London), there was a heatwave in Antarctica, extremely low water levels in the rivers Rhine and Po, and dramatic flooding in Pakistan that affected 33 million people.
Everything has to do with everything
In Germany 30 percent of beech trees are dead or severely damaged. That was never the case before. One of the main causes is human-made climate change. The extreme aridity of the recent years was the last straw for the already weakened trees. The Covid pandemic, the other dominant topic of the past three years, has made these problems more visible. Humanity is waging a war against all life.
«Nothing happens in living nature that is not in connection with a whole…The question is: How do we find the connection of these phenomena, of this (natural) event?»
This is not the statement of a modern-day ecologist. Goethe said it 230 years ago (Goethe, 1792). He was a scholar of life. He knew that all living things are interrelated. Modern science has worked this out in the past hundred or so years, admirably and extensively, in earth ecology and human physiology, to name but two fields.
As early as 1819 Goethe, who could be called the first ecologist, spoke about cleaning earth, water and air in Parsi Nameh:
«Water and earth if thus you should refine
The Sun throughout the air will gladly shine,
There to bring life, meeting reception due,
And, bringing life, add health and strength thereto.»
(West-Eastern Divan, Book of the Parsees, Legacy of the Old Persian Faith, tr. E. Dowden)
Goethe even then asked the question that is central to us today regarding the future: either we follow the legacy of the Parsee and keep earth, water and air clean, or we continue on the path of self- and world-destruction.
In a letter to Charlotte von Stein of 8 June 1787 Goethe unfolds a kind of prophetic vision that now, more than 230 years later and against the background of the Covid pandemic, seems highly relevant. He said that «at the same time the world will become a huge hospital and people will be each other’s nurse.» Above the entrance to the «huge hospital» the diagnosis is inscribed: «fatal illness». According to Goethe we can only escape this «fatal illness» if we discover its causes, avoid them as much as possible and do all we can to promote healing actively and consistently. What is Goethe’s verdict on the causes of the «fatal illness»?
This he stated in the wisdom of old age in 1829,
«but nature understands no jesting; she is always true, always serious, always severe; she is always right, and any errors and mistakes are always those of human beings.»(Conversations with Eckermann, Part 2, 13 February 1829)
With these words he challenges us to recognize and acknowledge the truth that nature is the most powerful condition of life. If we ignore this Goethean truth, we will destroy ourselves and our planet.
The second cause, which Goethe identifies, and blames partly on the Romantics, is an elevated view of ideas. According to Goethe this lastingly weakens life’s immune defence. In his words:
«Everything that is idea will ultimately, as soon as it is challenged by reality, consume both the latter and itself.» (Sprüche in Prosa [verses in prose], FA 13, 34).
Goethe sees this as a life-endangering negation of reality that will have disastrous consequences. Goethe gives an example of this, referring to his esteemed friend Friedrich Schiller. Schiller, he states,
«moved on to the idea (of freedom) and I dare say that this idea killed him since it led him to make demands on his physical nature that exceeded his strength.» (Conversations with Eckermann, Part 1, 18 January 1827)
Dismissing the power of nature, of physical vitality, on the one hand and elevating the idea above reality on the other are the two main causes of this great immune deficiency, the «fatal disease», that will ultimately send us to the «huge hospital». A problem we meet widely today is that many people focus either on nature’s powerful effectiveness whilst losing sight of the ideal, or they focus mainly on ideas and neglect the power of nature. However, it cannot be a matter of favouring the one or the other; both must be considered and taken seriously. This is difficult because it is human nature to be drawn in one direction, but in the past three years we were able to observe the tragic consequences of dismissing Goethe’s advice.
How can we escape the fatal disease? Goethe advocates encouragement, but real help, he thinks, comes from the probably most challenging virtue, which he calls temperantia, or moderation. Temperance does not only temper extremes but also all the virtues; because every virtue carried to excess becomes a vice.
«The virtue of temperance proves to be the source of Goethe’s worldly wisdom which succeeds in subordinating human emotions and passions to nature’s great common sense. This alone can save humanity from self-destruction.» (Osten, 2021)
And this alone can help us to stop the destruction of the earth.
Moderation is therefore the central postulation of life. Goethe thought it important that we cultivate the middle and attenuate or avoid extremes. He learned this from life itself. This does not mean that by nurturing the extremes or the poles a centre can be found. That would be a fatal error.
To reiterate: practise moderation, find a balance, avoid extremes.
This is where the science of ecology comes in. Ecology is about «good housekeeping». It describes how living creatures relate to one another and how they interact with the earth. We have already spoken of Goethe, the «first» ecologist. The great Ernst Haeckel defined the term in the 1860s. In the 18th and 19th centuries some, including Goethe, also used the word «economy». Rudolf Steiner, too, with his realistic and holistic view of cosmos, earth and humanity can be seen as an early pioneer of ecology, even if there was little concrete ecological knowledge around in his time.
«Spiritual ecology»
Ecology is quickly becoming a leading science. Countless biologists have been exploring how living organisms relate to each other and to the original organism of the earth. And yet, there is much about life that we don’t know yet.
A discipline that calls itself «spiritual ecology» has emerged in recent years. All kinds of people use this label for themselves, such as the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Tich Nhat Hanh, the novelist and Luddite Wendell Berry, the Franciscan priest and preacher Richard Rohr, the depth psychologist Bill Plotkin, the scholar of religious studies Mary Evelyn Tucker, the Native American chief Oren Lyons, and many others. They all have one thing in common: they have no scientific training and therefore lack the corresponding knowledge, which means that they are trying to cast a spiritual light on something they do not know well enough. A difficult undertaking.
No! We need both. On the basis of clear, rich scientific knowledge we can come to an understanding of the world’s spiritual aspects. Both are one. Focusing on one of the two sides only is not enough.
If we want to work with the earth, if we want to stop its destruction, we have to know and if possible, put an end to, the causes.
The main causes of the destruction of the earth can be listed in the following order:
1. The different way land is used now. Natural landscapes are destroyed and drastically changed for the sake of monocultural farming, road building, housing and industry. Only very few rivers are left in Europe that follow their natural course. The Tagliamento is considered to be the last untamed river in the Alps.
2. The exploitation of animals and plants. The following example illustrates the devastating consequences of human interference which was neither intended nor was it foreseen. The huge and highly technologized fishing factories in our oceans are taking all the fish while many small-scale fishers struggle to survive. As the fish disappear, so do the seals; and because there are fewer seals, the great sharks and orcas no longer have enough to eat. They have therefore started to hunt sea otters with the result that the sea urchin population along the coasts can no longer be controlled. The sea urchins now eat up giant kelp forests on the coasts of America. Many, many other species lose their breeding grounds and disappear (Böhning-Gaese, Bauer, 2023). We are not even aware of most of these developments. Much scientific research is needed for us to gain a better understanding of life on our earth and to support this life.
3. The dire effects of climate change, on biodiversity for instance, are only just beginning to emerge. We really need to look more closely at biodiversity: compare a lawn and a meadow, for instance. Lawns usually have one kind of grass and thrive when they get enough water and fertilizer. Without that they will stop thriving and even die. Meadows are home to a variety of grasses, annual and perennial herbs, with deep or shallow roots. The species support each other. Meadows are much more resistant to heat and aridity, to folivores and fungi. Diverse communities of species are much more robust. They sequester carbon and provide a habitat for insects such as bees, for butterflies and birds.
4. The general pollution of the earth with plastic waste which is the reason why many animals die a cruel death. We also find microplastics everywhere: in our food, 11'022 metres deep in the Mariana Trench and 8848 metres high on Mount Everest. There are also excessively high concentrations of non-biodegradable compounds from drugs or sunscreen agents. The effects of oil spills in the oceans are still noticeable. But the main offender here is agriculture with its excessive soil fertilization and pollution.
5. Invasive species threaten indigenous organisms, causing them to disappear. Zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) are a well-known example. They settled in the Lake Constance region of Germany in the early 1960s, followed in 2016 by the quagga mussels. The two kinds of animal are close relatives, and both originate in the Black Sea. Quagga mussels change the entire ecosystem. At Lake Constance, even water extraction is affected by them.
The findings in ecology, microbiology and molecular biology are breathtaking in many respects. They make it possible for us to grasp and better understand the idea of a living earth. We can say today that humans owe their existence to the formation of rocks, of plant and animal life. They are a part of us and we are a part of them (Schad, 2023).
Face your fears
The formation of rocks, the living activity of plants above all, but also of animals have caused a restructuring of the earth over huge periods of time so that it can become a home to life. We owe gratitude to three realms of nature for enabling us to live on earth. When we work together with the life on earth, our cultural activity can carry the development of plants, animals and landscapes into a shared future.
Let us go back to Goethe: A life based on practice, facing our own fears and not being guided by emotions; moderation in the way we live our lives. All this is essential for our health and for the way we deal with the earth. Demanding constant growth goes against the laws of nature. Our own health requires the earth to be healthy; the two are intimately linked.
By its very nature, Waldorf Education is disposed to consider and promote the physical, emotional and mental development of children. It is a health-promoting education. But we are still not looking carefully enough at the connection between the earth’s life and our life. We should start by considering the idea of a living ecology of humanity and earth. Everything else will then follow by itself, for example as a result of the creativity and the many good pedagogical ideas put into practice by colleagues in schools the world over.
Albrecht Schad
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