So much of this world is bigger than us. Isn’t it?
As the Beatles once said, so adeptly,
“I heard the news today. Oh boy.”
Yes. We hear the news each day, and “Oh boy.”
So, with that, today, I bring you a piece by Linda Stowe.
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Larger World Issues by Linda Stowe
I spend a good part of my day keeping up with the news and most of it makes me feel bad. This morning as I was relaxing in bed, waiting for my internal signal to tell me it is time to get up, I thought about two recent bits of information I wish I hadn’t heard.
One concerned a radio signal sent from a galaxy almost 9 billion light-years away from the Earth. Scientists have been able to trace the source of the signal and found that it originated from a galaxy that may have been merging with one or two other galaxies. Galaxies merging with other galaxies sounds like a lot of upheaval went on. And that sounds to me like whatever life form sent the signal was sending a desperate SOS into the universe.
The other item was that environmentalists have concluded that collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Shelf is unavoidable. The resultant melt will raise the sea levels worldwide 10 feet which will, in turn, lead to coastal flooding and human migration issues that will make the problems at the Mexican border pale in comparison.
Each of these items is catastrophic, yet there is nothing in my background that would equip me to do anything about it. Why do I look for things that both pique my interest and make me worry? And what is even more frustrating is that although I have always done this, in the past I had people I could talk with about these things. These days most of the people I encounter in my daily life consider news the opening of a Goodwill Store in Eaton, leaving me to mull over larger world issues on my own.
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These things concern me too, greatly.
And so many others.
I don’t have any idea what my little life can do about either of these things. Putting my cans in the recycling bin hardly seems like enough to save the ice shelf. Yet. I do.
I’m hoping that Archbishop Desmond Tutu was right when he said:
“Do your little bit of good where you are. It’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
Or Vincent Van Gogh, when he said this:
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
As for the other matter, our intergalactic friends sending out a radio signal?
I went outside and looked toward outer space. I called out:
“If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
It’s lame, I know. But it’s all I have at the moment.
And I suppose that’s the best that any of us can do.
To give what we can give, when we can give it.
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++++ Additional Information+++++++
Information on the ice shelf in Beau of the Fifth Column’s podcast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYhNqQZ7h7o)
++++ Additional Information+++++++
The paper describing the discovery was published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on November 1, 2023.
Scientists announced that they had detected a radio signal from a galaxy nearly 9 billion light-years away. This is the farthest galaxy that has ever been detected using this type of radio signal, which is known as the 21-cm line.
The signal was detected by the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in Pune, India, and was traced to a galaxy called SDSSJ0826+5630. This galaxy is thought to be merging with one or two other galaxies, which could be the source of the radio signal.
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The bigger, bigger, bigger world. By Linda Stowe.
