Whose signature is this?

And who has left this one?

The colour is a clue, as is the black background – and the season.

These are trails you might be lucky enough to see if you go out into the forest late on a summer night – about an hour after sunset.

That’s right! They are the signatures of fireflies, lightning bugs, or glowworms – whatever name you know them by.

Above are two parts cropped out of the following photo I took in the forest outside Brussels, Belgium, a week after the summer solstice.

The oldest known fossils of the Lampyridae family – that are characterised by their ability to produce light by bioluminescence – are from the Late Cretaceous, 99 million years ago (ref). On this ‘Life of Earth in a Year‘ timescale that’s 3 days ago, at the same time as the appearance of flowering plants on land. So there was extra colour at night as well as during the day for the delight I imagine of the dinosaurs, mammals, amphibians and birds that were around.

Luckily for these beetles (and us), they survived the fifth and most recent mass extinction event 66 million years ago. Three quarters of plant & animal species were not so lucky.

Here’s another shot I got of them, with a close fly-past on the top right.

What can you see in these photos? Let me know in the comments section at the end of this post.

There are more than 2,000 described species of these beetles in the Lampyridae family. I didn’t try to catch one so I have no idea which species we get in Belgium!

With nature putting on such a show, it’s no wonder that our folklore contains night-time spirits: will-o’-the-wisp in English, ignis fatuus in Latin, feu follet in French, Irrlicht in German, to list just a few translations.

It’s a wonderful spectacle – even more captivating because they are totally silent. This gives a magical atmosphere to the forest as the last faint glow from the sunset fades.

“Glow baby, glow!”

I was delighted to be able to present “Life of Earth in a Year” to a group as part of an event in Switzerland – and hear their feelings to seeing how we fit into the whole history and future of Earth.

The reactions the group shared included gratitude to be part of life on Earth, humility at realising just how fleeting humanity’s part is, as well as despair at having had brought children into a world that will in any case not exist for ever. The latter is understandable for those of us in societies in which facing up to our own mortality tends to be a discussion to be avoided.

Many thanks again to all those who took part for your interest and the discussion we had.

If you would like me to present this project in English or French as part of one of your events, don’t hesitate to contact me. It can be online or if in easy travelling distance from Brussels in person.

Since I started this project in 2021, hundreds of people from all over the world have had a go at answering the main question: “If 1st January is when the Earth formed and 31st December is when it will be consumed by the Sun, what would today’s date be on this imaginary calendar?“

Let’s remember that this timeline is just an illustration. It can’t be ‘correct’ because it assumes that the Earth will be absorbed by our dying Sun on a specific date – here one moment and gone the next. We can be pretty sure that won’t be the case: rather that its demise will be a gradual process lasting many millions of years. The same goes for the formation of Earth of course – we now know it didn’t happen on 22 October 4004 BCE, as the Ussher Chronology long held. On top of this, the current estimations of when the Earth will cease to be vary enormously.

However, now that all the small print is out of the way, here’s how close participants so far have got to “today’s date” of 17 May on this timeline:

There’s a fair spread across the whole year, but the majority get it ‘right’: somewhere in the middle. Earth has been around for a long time, but has still got a lot of future ahead of it. Bravo! And many thanks to everyone who has taken part.

A circle with a dot in the middle could represent…

…a solar system? Something smaller perhaps: an atom? Too small. A cell and nucleus? Let’s go for something a little bigger – and something that I saw a lot of today on the second day of Spring in Belgium: a single frog egg.

Amphibians have been around for over 300 million years – three times longer than mammals. They were the second class of animals to colonise land, after insects. They have stood the test of time – until now. The current extinction rate of amphibians could be over 200 times the background extinction rate. They are fragile and important.

My wife recently gave me a great little camera and I’m having lots of fun using the night sky setting! (I also used to for underwater shots that you can see in my post about octopuses.)

A three-hour exposure is a wonderful way of seeing how much is going on above our heads as we spin around on Earth. Below are some shots I took this summer in the south of France. At this latitude and altitude (44 degrees north, 50m above sea level) I was spinning at about 1250km/h as the Earth rotates. I was also on a planet orbiting the Sun at roughly 107,000 km/h. That sun is in a solar system rotating around the Milky Way galaxy at approximately 700,000 km/h. And as the universe expends, our galaxy is moving 2.2 million km/h relative to the cosmic background radiation that permeates the universe. (Source)

With all that going on, it’s a wonder that the surface of water in a glass can look still.

Back to the stars! Below the northern Pole Star is right at the bottom & centre of the shot, turning in a very small circle, almost motionless. We see it this way because the Earth’s axis point almost exactly at it. Just above it there’s a small meteor.

In this next shot the streak on the right is probably a satellite as it’s white, compared to the smaller meteor on the lower left by the tree.

Here some whisps of cloud give a nice effect. We can also see the red and green dotted trail of a plane at high altitude.

The different colours that we see depend on the nature of light each star emits as well as the atmospheric conditions. Cooler stars have redder wavelengths, and at the other end of the scale hotter objects have bluer wavelengths. Yellow and green are between the two extremes.

The next shot is in the same location, but looking in exactly the opposite direction, towards the south. The trails are gentle curves, upwards in the top part of the photo, downwards at the bottom and almost straight lines between the two. And there are quite a number of planes as this is not looking towards the air corridors above Marseilles. There’s also the characteristic thin while line of a satellite.

And here we can see how much busier the sky is in Brussels, Belgium! As well as all the planes, there’s a small meteor ‘fireball’ on the left and a couple of satellites.

I’m delighted to share the latest episode of Kevin Pennell’s “Toward A Better Life” podcast series: Episode 90 Life of Earth In A Year

Kevin’s podcast series covers a wide range of topics that can help us create a better life for ourselves and for others: “Creating a fulfilling, rewarding and healthier lives together”.

He interviews guest speakers from a multitude of disciplines and I’m so pleased that he asked me to present my project “Life of Earth in a Year – past, present and future“.

Kevin’s podcasts are available on http://www.towardabetterlife.com and on the main podcast platforms.

Happy Listening!

If you would like to incorporate “Life of Earth in a Year – past, present and future” into your activities – discussions, research, reflection in your community – please get in touch. I’d be happy to take part online. (Or in person if you in or close to Brussels!)

Some of the remarkable events that happened just before ‘now’ on the Life of Earth in a Year timeline, are engineering feats that ever since their completion have made us ask: “Now, how did they do that?!?”

If 1 January is the formation of the Earth and 31 December is when it will be consumed by the dying Sun, Stonehenge was built 14 second ago (5100 years ago in real time). A second after that the Great Pyramid of Giza is built (4600 years ago). And this weekend (21-22 September 2024) will for sure go down is history as being when… the wooden bridge for pedestrians and bikes was placed over the Brussels ring road at the “4 Arms” crossroads in Tervuren, Belgium! 

As with previous endeavours, it was long in the making, involved countless dedicated people from many disciplines and was a significant investment. Here are its vital statistics: 

• Designed by the Swiss engineer Samuel Blumer;
• Built 1km from the crossroads in the central reservation of a (very wide) avenue;
• Ready to be put in place in April 2024, but it was heavier than expected so the plan for moving it had to be re-done;
• Weighs 300 tonnes
• 67 metres long
• Cost: €5 million
• Covered so that the wood is protected from the elements.

As the leaves start to turn it’s time to have a good look through the summer holiday photos! It was a delight to explore the world below the waves on the coast near Marseilles, France, and encounter a highly intelligent animal that’s been around twice as long as primates – the wonderful octopus.

During the day the common octopus (octopus vulgaris) keeps to its den in the rock and with such highly developed camouflage it’s no wonder that most people paddling around waist-deep are oblivious to its presence.

Octopus will take cover during daylight hours, blocking their entrance with shells, rocks and other debris such as this piece of glass.

Octopods evolved 155 million years ago, about the same time as the first mammals – that’s 5 days before today on the ‘Life of Earth in a Year’ timeline.

Their diet is composed mainly of crustaceans, molluscs and shellfish, so this anemone has nothing to fear from them.

But did this Mediterranean Red Sea Star (Echinaster sepositus) lose something to a close encounter with an octopus? It looks more likely that it’s simply one of the minority that doesn’t have 5 legs – they can have 4, 6 or 7.

Octopus rarely prey on fish and certainly wouldn’t stand a chance of catching one of these ‘saupe’ (sea bream).

Here’s another common octopus in its den, with its siphon expelling water that has passed over its gills.

Keeping a close eye on me…

Unfortunately, much of the coastline where I took these photos is unprotected and spearfishing for octopus is common. I was heartbroken to see a diver return with four of these beautiful and intelligent animals in his catch. I’ve been snorkelling here for 20 years and I am however somewhat encouraged that I see more octopus. Perhaps I am ‘getting my eye in’ and know where to look. But, being optimistic by nature, I like to think that despite one of the great apes on this planet having learned to catch something below the waves to put on a barbecue, they are doing relatively well nonetheless.

May we leave them in peace, and be grateful that we have such wonders to observe.

It seems it’s time for a snooze…

Did you know that plans to farm octopuses are afoot?

Plans are in motion for the world’s first industrial octopus farm to open in the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Led by Spanish multinational seafood company Nueva Pescanova, farmed octopus products could soon appear on the market. Octopuses are proven to be sentient animals capable of experiencing pain and distress. Research shows that, according to their unique attributes, high-welfare octopus farming would be impossible to achieve. Despite this, the EU has not moved toward preventing octopus farming. Read more about the efforts of Eurogroup for Animals, the largest network of animal welfare organisations, to stop this industry from starting.

I was fortunate to be invited by Philip Carr-Gomm to present ‘Life of Earth in a Year – past, present and future‘ to the worldwide community of people interested in nature-based spirituality that he gathers each Monday for “Tea with a Druid”. It is hosted by OBOD – The Order of Bards Ovates & Druids – a community around the world of people who love nature and want to follow a magical, spiritual way that respects and protects the natural world in all its beauty.

I really appreciated everyone’s enthusiasm and the feelings they shared. Watch the recording and feel free to add the feelings this gives you.

Philip shared his own reactions including the acceptance of having two seemingly conflicting feelings at once: feeling sad that all life will come to an end, but also the wonder of being part of life and appreciating its transience. Such a linear timeline also posits that the material world is the only one that exists: from a more esoteric point of view, what if there are other dimensions.

There are also other ways of looking at the passing of time, Philip explained: in Hinduism, yugas are generally used to indicate an age of time and last up to millions of years – and we are currently in the Kali Yuga lasting 432,000 years.

Likewise in Hinduism, the god Brahma creates and destroys worlds in a cyclical rhythm: with each breath out taking millions of years Brahma creates all things, and destroys them with each breath in. What we don’t know is what will happen after the end of this planet – a whole new cycle could begin.

Philip concluded by sharing that when we think of our own existence we can compare it to the cycle of life we can see with a chestnut tree for example: from a fully grown tree flowering in spring, producing fruit in summer, shedding its leaves in autumn and becoming dormant in winter. In the following spring the tree starts the cycle again – and its fruit germinates to continue the line.

At the beginning of the last century, my Great-grandfather’s employer gave him a copy of “Modern History” by A. Piquot. It was already over a century old, having been published in 1819. When it was handed down to me I was fascinated to find that it had an annex with the grand title: “A Compendious Table of Chronology from the Creation of the World to the Present Time”. The first in this list of “most remarkable events” is unsurprisingly “the creation of the world”, but what I was amazed to read was the date given to it: 22 October 4004 BCE.

This is the Ussher Chronology, formulated in 1650 from a literal reading of the Old Testament of the Bible by James Ussher, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. The Ussher Chronology fell into disrepute in the later 19th century, but was clearly still acceptable enough for Picquot to included it in his book in 1819.

This is an excellent example of how a generally accepted view, something commonly held as ‘correct’ or ‘fact’, can be revised as new information comes to light.

One of the questions I am asked when presenting Life of Earth in a Year is “How can you be sure that the information you have included is correct?” Well, I can’t. All I can vouch for is that the information I have included is currently the generally accepted understanding and provide references most being Wikipedia. At some future time any given ‘fact’ might be reviewed, just as the age of our own planet has been, drastically and on numerous occasions.

Let’s have a look at how the age we have given to our home has changed.

The Earth is:

• 4,085 years old (Rabbi Yose ben Halafta, in 160 AD, i.e. created in 3925 BC)
• 4,652 years old (Bede The Venerable in approx. 700 AD, i.e. created in 3952 BC)
• 5,533 years old (Joseph Justus Scaliger in 1583, i.e. created in 3949 BC)
• 5,500 years old (Johannes Kepler in approx. 1600, i.e. created in 3992 BC)
• 5,654 years old (James Ussher in 1650 – i.e. created in 4004 BC)
• 75,000 years old (Comte du Buffon, 1779)
• 96,000,000 years old (John Phillips, 1841)
• 22 million years old (Hermann von Helmholtz, 1856)
• 20-400 million years old (William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, 1862)
• 56 million years old (George H. Darwin, c. 1880)
• 18 million years old (Simon Newcomb, 1892)
• 2-3 billion years (John Perry, 1895)
• 80-100 million years old (John Joly, 1900)
• 4.55 billion years old (Clair Cameron Patterson, 1956)
• 4.54 billion years old ± 0.05 billion years (currently accepted estimation)

Source: Wikipedia

It’s surprising to see how ‘wrong’ we got this answer in the past. But who knows if in the future we’ll say the same about the current ‘correct’ answer. The same can be said of other dates, such as the age of the Universe that is currently held to be 13.787 billion years ±0.020 billion years, starting with the Big Bang.

I wonder what caused my Great-Grandfather’s employer (R.C. Fisher – the daughter of Richard Cobden, an English Radical and Liberal politician, manufacturer, and a campaigner for free trade and peace) to pick an 86-year old “Modern History” as a gift for her butler – and if he ever read it. However, I’m glad it found its way to me so that I discovered the Ussher Chronology and can share it with you.