Six Degrees of Separation
David R. Weiss – September 25, 2025

You likely recognize the phrase. It’s a pop culture echo of actual philosophical queries and mathematical modeling that investigate one of the surprising phenomena of social networks. Sometimes referred to as the “Small World Problem” (where “problem” means something closer to “curiosity” or “dynamic”) it describes the disarming connectedness that is a counter intuitive feature of humanity, simply on account of our social nature. (Wikipedia has a good brief overview.)

In plain English it asserts that any two persons in the world are separated by not more than five other persons. Hence, we are just “six degrees of separation” from the entire rest of the world. Of course, there are many factors that come into play and some mathematical formulas and computer models produce numbers a bit higher (or a bit lower) than six. No matter. The phrase has taken on a life of its own as a way of reminding us that we are all likely much more closely connected than we assume. And setting the exact number aside, that’s a worthy truth to embrace.

But I want to spin this phrase in an altogether different direction. While hopefully harnessing its memorable character to stick with you in new ways.

Yesterday I was listening to Paul Huttner’s Climate Cast segment on MPR (Minnesota Public Radio). He commented—himself stunned by the data—that since 1970, the average temperature in September in Minnesota has gone up—you guessed it—by six degrees.

That’s honestly hard to grasp. After all, each September is twelve months distant in our memory by the time the next one rolls around. And the other eleven months are warming as well at their own paces. And that’s a 55-year span. Still, imagine: in my body, normal temperature is 98.6. Raise that by six degrees to 104.6, and I’d feel that—with a panic.

Earth Day was founded in 1970, broadly focused on recognizing Earth as our home, and more specifically aiming to lift up environmental concerns and channel that energy into action. Well, here we are 55 years later, and there are now SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION between us and that first Earth Day.

Hardly the comforting notion of human interconnectedness. In this context it evokes the abject failure of our efforts (do you even call them “efforts” at six degrees?) to take climate change seriously. The drivers of this failure are many. From the triumph of corporate interests to the failure of our politics. From misguided religious commitments to colonized consumer habits. From reckless agriculture practices to foolhardy technological confidence. From an impoverished communal imagination to rampant individualism.

I could go on. By almost every metric and from almost every angle, human systems have been so misshapen by the dynamics of exploitive bias (othering those we choose to—because we can) and extractive wealth (taking whatever we wish to—because we can) that those six degrees represent not nearness, but the existential chasm between what we know to be true (Earth is finite—and our only home) and how we structure our lives.

A snapshot in time. Fifty-five years is a fairly random sample. And six degrees is just one way of counting that rising warmth, itself just one data point in an Earth system wildly atilt. And—gosh dang it—as I sit out on my porch on a breezy 80-degree day in late September, it just feels so … nice.

But those six degrees of separation push and pull Minnesota’s ecological fabric in manners that threaten to rip it apart. That creeping warmth, barely noticeable from one year to the next, is setting all the intricate relationships that make an ecology work on edge. Some of the plants, bugs, animals, and complex energy relationships in these parts take their cues from lengthening and shortening days—which (thus far!) have stayed the same. But others in this eco-community take their cues from temperatures—ground, air, water, daytime highs, nighttime lows. And as the historical mismatch widens, the wellbeing of each strand in Minnesota’s fine woven ecology is stressed.

Imagine a marching band where half the members follow one drum major and half follow another. So long as the drum majors are in sync, the band’s movements remain synchronized. But if those majors have, shall we say, six degrees of separation between them, well, that band is about to march itself into chaos.

And that’s where we’re at, this fall, in Minnesota. We may not notice it quite yet. Although those who do “Earth-work” for a living (farmers, meteorologists, wildlife biologists, ecologists, nature nerds) no doubt sense the strands they deal with have grown taut. At some point each thread (different points but compounding and cascading as well) will … SNAP.

We’re at six degrees of separation now. But we’re on our way to at least ten degrees of separation (or more) by the time we “celebrate” Earth Day’s centennial. (www.climate.umn.edu/MNclimate) By then, that ecological marching band will have marched itself into a toppled mass.

I don’t offer these “six degrees of separation” as a wake-up call. As though maybe now we’ll set different priorities just in the nick of time. No. The inertia of our human systems far outweighs the strength of our individual (even our communal) choices by now. Moreover, the inertia of the Earth systems we’ve knocked off balance has a planetary momentum we can’t even begin to slow. At this point, “six degrees of separation” is a call to lament.

It is a measure of the grief we owe one another and our fellow living creatures on Earth. Because that original meaning of six degrees stills holds true—even more so across this pale blue dot. Interconnection, whether by six degrees or sixty, is the foundational truth of all life on Earth. We only ever deluded ourselves when we thought otherwise.

We’re about to be tutored on the topic of interconnection. I’m guessing it’s going to be a painful lesson for most of us. Six degrees of separation. It cuts both ways. Driving home the nearness of our ecological relatedness. And the distance we are from anything that might be called sustainable.

I don’t write this as an exercise in despair. I actually think lament—grief as deep as the world is wide—is a path forward. Perhaps not to survival, but from grief to integrity, honesty, simplicity, community, and care.

Call those my six degrees of separation. Reconnecting us to one another and all that is.

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.