Civilization and Beyond: Learning from History Part 24

Beyond civilization we will conserve, share, beautify and, if possible, improve the earth, which is our physical base of operations.

The earth is an irregular sphere, one of a number of planets circling the sun, from which we get light, heat and radiation. The earth has a sh.e.l.l or crust made of various minerals. Two-thirds of its surface is water of various depths up to six miles. Above the surface is an atmosphere, some twenty miles thick, composed of various gases, dust particles and water vapor. Operating throughout the earth there are vibrations of different wave lengths.

As a whole the earth is a going concern that carries out its daily, seasonal, yearly business of providing a home for an immense variety of forces; for living forms, in the earth, on the earth, in the water and in the air. The earth and its attributes are the common host or mother of us all.

Some of earth's inhabitants are "alive". Many of the living forms move about--and reproduce themselves, pa.s.sing through a life cycle from birth to death.

Some among the living forms cl.u.s.ter together into more or less permanent groups which develop social relations.h.i.+ps including communities in which individuals are born, live and die.

Speaking in metaphors, the sun is the common father of us all, providing us with light and heat, the earth is the common mother of us all, providing us with sustenance. We living beings, progeny of sun and earth, pa.s.s through a span or cycle of earthly existence--helping one another, ignoring one another, jostling one another, annoying and even killing and devouring one another.

This is a roundabout way of saying that nature, human beings and human society are part and parcel of a total relations.h.i.+p which includes the planet earth, the solar system and an immense range of celestia which includes minute particles of celestial dust, like our earth, and majestic a.s.semblies of celestial notables like the Island Universe of which we are unnumbered and barely noticed particles.

At some point in this vast a.s.semblage, actually before the a.s.semblage came into existence, there were responsible, animating forces in play.

There was also the responsibility for the use or exercise of the operating forces. We humans are a product of those forces. We also share in their functioning. Consequently we share in the responsibility which is a.s.sociated with their exercise.

It is the task of philosophy to designate the responsibility; to describe it, measure it and perhaps to a.s.sign it. At any rate, we find ourselves in a position where certain things are expected of us, perhaps even required of us as members of the human family and/or of the human family as a functioning whole.

It is entirely possible that, instead of overlooking, ignoring, bickering, quarreling and periodically maiming and killing each other wholesale, we humans should be devoting our energies, emotions, thoughts and plans to furthering the larger purpose of which the earth and its inhabitants are small segments. In a word, that we humans should be acting as a responsible part of a functioning whole engaged in the vast enterprise of being and becoming.

Whatever our ultimate tasks may be, our immediate problem is three-fold: (1) To make the earth the fittest possible living place for all of its inhabitants; (2) to organize human society in the way best calculated to achieve that objective; and (3) to make every reasonable effort to prepare ourselves to play a meaningful part in this cosmic drama to which we have been a.s.signed.

Item (1) is the theme of this chapter, item (2) is the theme of Chapter 17. Item (3) is the theme of Chapter 18.

Pa.s.sing beyond civilization we will attempt to conserve, share, beautify and if possible to improve our earth.

Our first task is to make the earth the fittest possible place for _ALL_ of its inhabitants. In a way that is a simple a.s.signment, but its implementation will take us into every nook and corner of the land, water, air, radiational field, and every other aspect of the planet, including the weather.

When we say _ALL_ forms and phases of life we mean all. All microscopic life, all lichens and mosses, all vegetation on land, in the water, in the air. All insects, all birds, all fish, all quadrupeds. All two legged animals. All centipedes and all those in between.

All forms of life have been a.s.signed to our earth for a purpose, or have made a place for themselves in the vast scheme of things or are clinging parasitically to life after their a.s.signments have been fulfilled or as their usefulness is drawing to a close.

In a broad sense, that which lives on the earth, including mankind, has a right or an opportunity to be here, living to the utmost of its always limited capacity. How limited? Limited by the similar rights of all other forms and aspects of life. In a word life on the earth--each life and all life--is a shared opportunity.

Doubtless there are planners, regulators and arbitrators whose task it is to decide, at any particular moment, who shall survive and who shall perish. Actually we humans perform a part of that function every time we thin out a forest, weed a garden, select our seed or teach a cla.s.s. At one stage of life we are the judges, at another stage we are the judged, performing multiple tasks that must be fulfilled during each moment of each day and each year.

In our Island Universe this earth is small. But in each backyard, on each acre or square mile of earth, decisions may be made or are being made that determine survival, utility, order, beauty. The results of those decisions appear constantly in the life all about us.

We have all been in homes where neatness, usefulness and good taste abound. We have been in villages and towns where the same conditions prevailed. On the other hand, we have been in situations that can be described only by the words littered, disorderly, chaotic. We have also seen neat orderly homes in disorderly, slovenly neighborhoods. Much depends upon who makes the decisions and whether the plans that are carried into effect promote or obstruct the ultimate purpose.

At the moment, we have the satisfaction of orderly, beautiful neighborhoods at the same time that we are surrounded by a disorderly, littered, chaotic international battleground.

The earth with its oceans and its atmosphere is a storehouse containing many if not most of the essentials for survival, growth and development, for mankind as well as a mult.i.tude of other life forms. Perhaps its most valuable single a.s.set from the human viewpoint is its topsoil. Topsoil plus light, air and moisture provide the elements necessary for producing vegetation. Vegetation, in its turn, furnishes the nourishment on which animals thrive.

At the top of our priority list for the well-being of the earth stands the injunction: conserve and build topsoil.

Topsoil is lost through erosion--wind erosion, water erosion, erosion through over cropping. It is held in place by stones, gra.s.ses, and the roots of shrubs and trees. Untouched by human hands, on the prairies and in the forests, topsoil is deepened year by year as winter frosts break up soft rocks, as dead gra.s.ses, leaves, twigs break down into humus, to become part of the topsoil and provide the nourishment for a new round of vegetation.

Topsoil is renewable, replaceable. Lost through cropping and erosion, it may be rebuilt and deepened by natural processes. In temperate climates with normal rain and snowfall, the topsoil of gra.s.slands or a forest may be deepened year by year and century by century. Topsoil may also be deepened by dust storms that pick up particles of humus from dry lands and carry them to moister areas.

Through a carefully controlled sequence, semi-desert lands planted first to gra.s.ses and then to shrubs and trees can be protected against wind erosion. As vegetation flourishes it increases dew formation and rainfall. Plant roots prevent runoff and retain the water in gulleys and low places. Evaporation builds up moisture content in the atmosphere.

Water vapor forms drops and falls in rain or snow.

Foresighted husbandry not only prevents erosion but, practiced on a sufficiently broad scale, increases air moisture and modifies climate--the weather.

We are less fortunate with some of the critically important minerals that make up the earth crust.

During early centuries in the history of western civilization adventurers and prospectors concentrated on the precious metals. The voyagers and discoverers who sailed fifteenth century seas were seeking supplies of gold, silver and precious stones that could be cut and converted into the highly prized jewels adorning the crowns and scepters of the mighty.

Production at that stage meant agriculture, with side occupations such as hunting, fis.h.i.+ng, weaving, tanning, pottery, thatching and peat cutting, in the all but continuous countryside. There was a very little mining, but outside of the commercial towns and the growing capital cities people made their living by taking care of domestic animals and tilling the soil. Between seed time and harvest they tightened their belts and prayed the Powers that Be for a bountiful yield. If it came they feasted. If the crop failed they struggled to survive on the narrow margin between hunger and starvation.

If they saw any money it was likely to be copper, with perhaps an occasional piece of silver. Gold was for the rich, of whom at that period there were precious few, even among the owners of land and the wielders of power.

Country folk barely scratched the surface of the earth. Roads were wheel tracks in the mud. Bridges were fords that became more or less impa.s.sable with high water.

These a.s.sertions sound strange and romantic to the modern beneficiaries of asphalt and reinforced concrete. They were the lot of most Europeans and North Americans when our great grandfathers and great grandmothers were in their prime.

What has made the difference between their use of the earth and ours?

Chiefly, the newly tapped sources of energy and the wide variety of minerals--whose names were unknown except to scholars and scientists before 1750. It is the new sources of energy and the only recently utilized metals that have made the difference.

Farm land can be used and abused many times before its productive possibilities are exhausted. Even then, with foresight, technical proficiency, the investment of labor and capital, agricultural land can be restored to fertility. Iron ore, tin, copper and tungsten are extracted from the earth, refined, put to some use or wasted as the case may be, but they are gone. They may be replaced by other minerals.

Through geological ages they may redeposited in the earth's crust. But to all intents and purposes, they are finished.

It is a source of pride to promoters and propagandists for the status quo that western man has removed more metals and minerals from the earth's crust in the past two hundred years than his predecessors removed during the previous two thousand years. It is also a source of danger, because the possibilities of taking those particular minerals from that particular cubic foot of the earth are ended.

Replaceable natural resources such as soil fertility, gra.s.ses and trees can be restored and reproduced. Irreplaceable natural resources are exhausted by one use. In so far as they are concerned, that part of the earth's crust has been impoverished--made poorer.

Wasted through neglect and careless use, squandered in the senseless destruction of war, the earth is still a rich treasure house for its mult.i.tudinous forms of life. Its remaining treasures can be carefully conserved. Such replaceable resources as topsoil, vegetation and water can be husbanded. Oceans, mountains and, deserts can be dealt with as we proceed with our programs for the most economical use of the natural resources that remain to us.

Western man is presently emerging from a boisterous era of invention, discovery, of multiplying productivity and corresponding waste of irreplaceable natural resources-temporarily justified by "national security" and "war emergency." The temporary loss of replaceable reserves and the permanent loss of irreplaceable resources is none the less tragic, no matter how urgent the immediate cause for their consumption.

At this stage in the history of earth's conservation, when so much is waiting to be done, if each family, each village and town, each city state and nation will do its bit to conserve, plan, shape, utilize, beautify, improve what remains of the natural environment, the results will be impressive enough to justify the time and means devoted to the enterprise.

Wherever we go with our plea for the foresighted and economical use of the earth and its remaining resources, we are met with the question: "But what can I do?" The answer is simple. Find your place in the nearest team working to utilize, conserve, and, where possible, enlarge the natural wealth of the planet. If no such team exists, join with your neighbors in organizing one. Take seriously your a.s.signment to use the part of the earth with which you are in contact intelligently, economically, wisely.

Whether you are a novice or a professional, a homesteader or a longtime resident, be sure that each contact you make with the earth enlarges its possibilities of utility, order, beauty.

This crusade to save and utilize the earth as the common mother of so many forms of life must be carefully planned and well organized through successive generations. Men have spent far too much time and energy in destroying. The time has come when they must conserve, plan, shape, utilize, beautify, improve.

If the energies now going into business, sport, social events, frivolities, make-believe and the deliberate destruction of waste and war could be directed to planning, utilizing, beautifying on the circ.u.mferences and at the centers of population concentrations, immense forward strides could be taken in a single generation.

The planet still has immense, unused or little used reserves of natural resources. The old order is slipping, floundering, wasting. Civilization has told the best of its story and is busy writing its epitaph. The revolution of 1750-1970 provides the opportunity for a new beginning.

The place is here. The time is now. Let us conserve, beautify, share, utilize and, in so far as possible, improve our natural surroundings.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN