Get to work! New popular science books: “The Communist Wind”

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Storms have swept across Europe this month, causing flooding in northern France and Tuscany and strong wind gusts in the mountains. When I hear such messages, the famous poem “The End of the World” by Jacob van Hoddis (1887-1942) comes to mind with the following verses: “The citizen’s hat flies from his pointed head, / Through all the air it echoes like a cry” or ” There is a storm, wild seas are galloping / On land, they are destroying thick dams.”

As much as the strong wind can destroy, it creates life on earth and, on the contrary, is the beginning of the world. That’s what German writer Kerstin Decker (60) writes in her new book, referring to the story of creation in the Old Testament, where the “spirit of God” floated on the water. “The Hebrew word that is usually translated as ‘Spirit of God’ is ruach, and ruach is wind,” Decker said. According to the Bible, if the world is ventilated in this way, every person comes into the world with his first breath.

“Human beings breathe approximately 500 million times,” Decker writes. This is about 20,000 times a day. And she points out that we are in the ocean: “We live in an airy sea, right at the bottom.” We can refuse food and drink there, but we must breathe. Decker: “Breathing is also wind, it is an invigorating breath.” Only death is the ultimate event of sudden calm. And when we sneeze, the speed of the air we breathe reaches hurricane force: 160 km/h.

Which brings us back to the earth’s winds, which humanity quickly learned to use. It is unknown who raised the first sail and where, only the first image of the sail has survived: a 7,000-year-old urn in Luxor (Egypt) depicts a Nile ship with a vertical mast and a square across in front of it. Later, the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521) circumnavigated the world for the first time. “Nobody would row around the world,” Decker said. Such ambitions required an accomplice: the wind.

“How could we forget for so long about the energy that floats above water,” writes Decker, given the fact that the EU wants to reduce CO₂ emissions from shipping by 80 percent by mid-century. The Swedish cargo sailing ship Oceanbird, 200 meters long and 40 meters wide, will soon transport 7,000 cars. With its five tall sails made of steel and composite foils, it is reminiscent of old steamships with chimneys.

If the Earth did not rotate, there would be only southerly winds in the northern hemisphere, and only northerly winds in the southern hemisphere – from the equator to the poles. “The wind is communist,” writes the philosopher born in the GDR. The wind hates uneven distribution, that’s the only reason it blows. He wanted the air pressure to be the same everywhere. Once this is done, there will be complete peace. “The world is on the air,” Decker writes.

Source: Blick