July begins and seems to jump quickly to the 4th, the 244th annual celebration of our Declaration Of Independence from England. I just did a re-read of the Declaration, it still holds up! Give it a look and then remember, the founders, for all their faults, worked and fought but came together, as the United States. Even in these trying times, with all that‘s going on here and worldwide, 244 years later, we have it pretty good in these United States. There is plenty to do yet, to form a more perfect union, but get out and celebrate, safely, our independence on Saturday.
Earth, at 7:35am on the 4th, reaches Aphelion, at 94.5 million miles, the farthest point in our annual, elliptical orbit around the sun and allows me to remind you, as I did my students, it’s our tilted axis not our distance that causes seasonal change.
A day later, on the 5th, July’s Full Moon (the Buck moon) will light the night sky with bright Jupiter and golden Saturn shining steadily just above our natural satellite. Maybe not as spectacular as fireworks the previous night but that lovely trio will dazzle all night. Venus dominates the pre-dawn sky all month, far outshining nearby Aldebaran, the reddish “eye” of Taurus, the Bull. The sun begins July in Gemini, moving into Cancer on the 22nd.
After a summer of reflection, I started my second year as a teacher (and every year thereafter) by welcoming my ninth grade Earth Science students, on their first day of high school, with a little chat about change. High school marks a big change, a first step into the adult world, and as far as Earth was concerned, they were now young adults and Earth had one guideline and three simple rules all Earthlings need to know.
The underlying guideline: there is nothing but Change. The rules to meet the ongoing change: Adapt, Migrate or Die. That’s it. Those are the rules on Earth. The inescapable reality of change has hit hard and fast in 2020. Most of us have adapted, a few have migrated, too many have died.
The pace of change has thrown things off this year. A pandemic that came slowly, then quickly but is refusing to go away and now worldwide protests for social change and reform that has been way too long and slow in coming. The pace of change never quite seems to match human desires and timelines.
The reality of change on Earth is not news. The problems and stresses of adapting or migrating to deal with rapid change and not dying, that’s tricky, that’s news. The perseverance to induce long term societal change in intrenched systems will be less rapid, but it too, will still be news and will come.
Amidst this pandemic and protests for racial justice, climate change and pollution continue on Earth. Evidence suggests humans are playing a significant role in these changes. As with racism, humans will also have a large role as to whether future changes will be positive or negative for ourselves or other life forms with which we share the planet.
Amidst this pandemic and protests for racial justice, climate change and pollution continue on Earth. Evidence suggests humans are playing a significant role in these changes. As with racism, humans will also have a large role as to whether future changes will be positive or negative for ourselves or other life forms with which we share the planet.
Our founding fathers united 244 years ago, establishing a system flexible enough to deal with change they knew was coming but could not foresee. We will get through and past all 2020 has thrown our way; it will be much easier if we, too, are united.
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