For your stray attention this weekend

On migrations, doubles and the end of the author

Hello,

After writing about the transition to winter light this week, I couldn’t help but notice how warm I’ve been feeling. Granted, some of it has been due to yet another bout of covid, but something else is going on too. The joint-hottest September on record here in the UK has presented us with an unsettling mismatch: nights that draw in early, but which do not come with an accompanying chill in the air. For sure, it’s one of the least horrifying effects of climate change, but it is nevertheless disturbing. Here is another incomprehensible shift away from the familiar, another discombobulation. We are moving through a world that feels uncomfortable in ways we can barely articulate.

This uncoupling of the temporal and the meteorological is already causing serious problems for our wildlife, including my beloved dormouse. But it’s likely to give us humans some grief, too. In this fascinating article, Philip Maughan explains that we’re only just beginning to understand the importance of our circadian rhythms for every system in our bodies. They are maintained by zeitgeiber - meaning ‘time-givers’ - which are external clues that keep us aligned with days, nights and years.