THE LIVING CLIMATE

Two years ago, I reviewed Charles Eisenstein's 2018 book, Climate, A New Story, which advocated a living systems approach to nature and therefore to what we call the environment, and its implications for the debate surrounding climate change. He argued that the framing of the problem is part of the problem, and that the mainstream approach was based on a separation between humans and Nature, treated as a collection of resources to be allocated for maximum short-term benefit, based on the imperative of economic growth. However, quantitative mechanistic approaches to nature are inherently inadequate, as they ignore the qualitative – what he calls basic human desires for connection, community, beauty, sacredness, and empathy.

This brilliant and radical new study by Luigi Morelli echoes these premises by arguing that we need to re-orient our way of seeing and being in Nature to incorporate the harmonic and the qualitative advocated by Kepler, Goethe, Steiner, and especially Viktor Schauberger, the Austrian forester whose work is essential reading in this field – I have reviewed a number of books about him in these pages. Historically, this way of thinking goes back to the two ways of seeing Nature and the Cosmos represented by Kepler on the one hand, and Galileo and Newton on the other. Kepler's approach advocated the study of a living system via harmonic and musical laws, while Galileo introduced the idea of celestial mechanics within an overall mechanistic metaphor that also treated the Earth as a closed system.

Theory-driven computer models incorporating inbuilt assumptions that become axioms are derived from the latter approach, while the former includes the larger ecology of our solar system, including the Sun and planetary influences with oscillations and rhythmic periodicities that are well known to astronomers – and especially the movement of the Sun round what is called the Central Mass, (pp. 201 ff.) highlighting the role of Jupiter as the largest planet in the system. There is a detailed chapter explaining this harmonic approach and its empirical record and forecasts based on the work of Theodor Landscheidt, and continued by Nicola Scafetta. They argue that the Earth's climate is influenced by the whole planetary system, and see our current situation as one of planetary depletion driven by the extractive economic approach adopted by large corporations for short-term profit. Moreover, what is conventionally regarded as random variability is in fact the manifestation of periodic oscillations – this view is advanced with robust data, and asks about the deep drivers of depletion, also at the etheric level not accounted for by mechanistic approaches, but which was important for both Schauberger and Steiner.

In 1931, Schauberger prophetically wrote: 'It should be noted that formidable climatic changes will occur if, as a result of incorrect systems of forest management and river regulation, the orderly formation of clouds is disturbed.' (p. 3) So the central focus here is on rivers, forests, and agriculture - and the primacy of water rather than CO2 as the key variable. Interestingly, the living systems model argues that 50 to 70% of global warming arises from solar activity, while IPCC models state that 90% of warming is anthropogenic. It should be noted that CO2 as the central driver of climate change has become a scientific and academic consensus driven by political and financial factors, as was the case with Covid 'Trust the Science.' Dissidents are demonised and lose their funding, nor can they propose research projects that do not support the existing narrative. However, 1,600 CLINTEL scientists signed a declaration in August 2023 declaring that there was no climate emergency. As the author puts it, 'we are moving away from a culturally independent science to a politically controlled majority-based opinion forming.' A number of the living systems thinkers argue that we are moving towards a new grand solar minimum cold period (p. 227 ff.) – for the public, as Charles Eisenstein observed, there is no real scientific debate about these issues, and those scientists who question the IPCC on evidential grounds are simply dismissed as climate deniers.

Eisenstein rightly identifies the shift from a geo-mechanical to a Gaia, living systems view as critical. He writes: 'The health of local ecosystems…. depends on the health of the water cycle, and the health of the water cycle depends on the soil and the forests.' (p. 85) Luigi explains this in more detail in a chapter on rivers, forests, farms, and the cycle of water as interdependent systems seeking a state of balance – each of these elements can contribute to climate alteration, and in this respect he describes the crucial role of creating a positive temperature gradient (pp. 97 ff) to enable absorption of rainwater into the soil and consequent maintenance of the groundwater table. He explains the crucial difference between the full hydrological cycle and the hydrological half-cycle (pp. 116 ff): rainwater can only penetrate the ground when it is colder than the water (around the 'boundary layer' of +4°C). Failure of the water to penetrate the ground leads to floods and run-off, as well as increasing the intensity of thunderstorms. Modern forestry, river management and agriculture compound these positive feedbacks in a cycle of self-destruction, and reinforce the argument for a qualitative and regenerative approach.

The final chapters give a holistic view of climate and its corresponding forecasts for the future, replete with scientific analysis linking various cycles over particular historical periods. Readers come to appreciate the importance of musical harmonics in the movements of the planets within the larger ecology of the living solar system. Luigi encourages us to think in a higher octave so that real causes can be identified and errors revealed, especially with regard to linear causality. The systems approach is formative whereby Nature mirror patterns of energy, including spiritual forces. Schauberger advocated a balance between planetary (feminine) motion and technical (masculine) motion on the basis of 2/3 to 1/3. On this basis, climate alteration is the result of the constant degradation of Nature, and this requires a radical change in our thinking and a full realisation that our situation directly reflects actions arising from our mechanistic and extractive worldview. For us, this involves both reconnection with Nature and Source, leading to a sense of connection with all life based on Schauberger's maxim of Kapieren und Kopieren – understand Nature and act accordingly. I emphatically agree with Luigi's conclusion that 'only a new culture can offer a remedy to an overall culture that has generated and perpetuated the problems, not just at the technical level, but primarily at the ideological one. (p. 246) A vital and hugely informative read, alongside Eisenstein's earlier work.