equinox

“The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 10% in the last 50 years…Man himself then, may be the cause of our warming climate.” Nothing unremarkable at first glance, but reading this a few weeks ago stopped me in my tracks. Why? Continue reading →

This NASA real image from space shows Earth at the moment of equinox. The Equator is exactly parallel to the Ecliptic, the plane of Earth’s orbit around the sun, so the noonday sun is vertically above the (shadowless) observer at the Equator. Continue reading →

How will you Spring into action and Turn over a new leaf? Make your Pledge Card and share your ideas here

Beneath and beyond two good slogans and these pledges lie the unique qualities of equinoxes*; these can activate Earth Days anew, helping us rise to the challenge of the biosphere/climate crisis: Continue reading →

Our climate and biosphere are now universally recognised to be in crisis, as this chart* of 1000 years of ice core and 50 years of atmospheric data starkly shows, and as we all experience the exponential realities of pandemic infection. Humanity’s influence is causal in both instances – again, beyond reasonable doubt. Continue reading →

EQ doubles up Earth Day by coupling Spring and Autumn Equinoxes and making twinned Earth Days each year. But equinoxes, being actual Earth Days rather than arbitrary calendar events, are also excellent prompts for clear, rational and logical thinking. Hence a post about this great book, published in 1930. Continue reading →

26-10-19, 09.17 UTC (Earthtime). Many humanoids will “fall back”* to a logically correct time tonight, when they set their clocks to approximate to the solar noon of their slice of planet Earth’s surface. This is wise, for they have been getting up increasingly in the dark, Continue reading →

These words of the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead – who with others 52 years ago in 1969 chose this fixed event in the calendar to be the first Earth Day – apply precisely to the equinox.

The Spring Equinox is a natural Earth Day, with a host of advantages built in. Not only that, it has a twin on the other side of the year: the Autumnal Equinox. Continue reading →

The Autumn Equinox 2019 coincided with my last day with the Royal Opera on tour in Japan. We had just performed the thrilling opening sequence of Verdi’s Otello in Tokyo at the moment of equinox – UK readers were having breakfast (08.50 BST). Continue reading →

Equinoxes are the ideal time to exercise the habit of zooming out into space and back in our imaginations. It’s a good, humbling way of sensing our interdependence, of our equality-under-the-sun. This is from a reading given at St Clement Danes Church, London, in the 2018 Christmas Concert of the young choir Coro.

Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to leave Earth’s orbit and head up and out into deeper space. The astronauts were Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders and they orbited the moon ten times during December 24, 1968. Continue reading →

Note: March 2021. A YouTube video about the EQ logo, the Golden Ratio – Phi – and the Fibonacci series is delayed by Covid lockdowns. Meanwhile, enjoy a 2017 memoir and excursion into time, space and music…

Stephen Hawking is 75! Indomitable doesn’t come close to describing his life.

He became a research fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge shortly before I joined as an undergraduate. Continue reading →

April 22nd is Earth Day – and you would be forgiven for not knowing or noticing here in the UK as it is a largely US-based event. More on this below, but it’s worth your attention: this year there was a March for Science on the National Mall, Washington DC, with as expected some pungent anti-post-truth banners.

There was a London March for Science too. I joined and was welcomed as an unreconstituted ‘artiste’, in moral support.

Continue reading →