Autumn Equinox 2024: The World Tilts, Markets Twitch, and We All Pretend to Love Pumpkin
Autumn Begins—Again—While the World Pretends to Notice
Dave’s Locker, International Desk | September 22, 2024
Today, at 12:44 UTC, the Northern Hemisphere officially tilts far enough from the sun to earn the label “autumn,” prompting roughly 6.7 billion people to suddenly remember their inexplicable fondness for pumpkin. In the Southern Hemisphere the same moment registers as the vernal equinox, which means Australians are Googling “how to remove pollen from Vegemite” while Chilean ski resorts post last-chance bikini discounts. The planet, never one to settle on a single mood, continues its annual exercise in contradictory branding.
For traders in Chicago, the first day of fall is the moment corn futures twitch like a college freshman tasting espresso for the first time: will the Midwestern harvest be “adequately catastrophic” to justify higher prices, or merely “miserable” and therefore bearish? Meanwhile, the European Central Bank issues a press release reminding everyone that energy costs traditionally rise when leaves turn, as if Brussels had personally raked them into neat piles of inflation. Over in Beijing, state media celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival by encouraging citizens to admire the moon and ignore the property sector—both are equally round and distant these days.
Across the Sahel, herders who never needed a celestial coordinate to know the season are watching their goats eye the last green tufts with the resigned expression of someone reading the final notice from the electric company. Climate negotiators in New York—conveniently meeting just after fashion week, so the private jets still match the luggage—will spend the week explaining that an extra 0.2 °C per decade makes autumn arrive later, except when it arrives earlier, which is apparently also consistent with the models. The takeaway, helpfully translated into six UN languages: “We’re not sure, but please stop burning things.”
The Japanese government, ever punctual, deployed 2,000 riot police to Shibuya to prevent Halloween from arriving a month early, because nothing threatens public order like foreigners in inflatable dinosaur costumes. In Canada, the prime minister’s office released a pre-autumn statement about “inclusive foliage,” prompting opposition leaders to accuse him of waging war on traditional maple colors. And in the United Kingdom—where seasons are less meteorological than emotional—newspapers simultaneously declared a “scorching Indian summer” and a “bone-chilling polar vortex,” depending on which paywall you bounce off first.
Yet beneath the pageantry lies a grimmer symmetry. Refugee camps in northern Syria receive their first pallets of winter blankets even as Greek islands still smell of sunscreen. Ukrainian grid engineers calculate how many weeks of autumn rain they can harness before Russian missiles turn the hydro plants into expensive waterfalls. In Sudan, the dry season’s dust is already filming satellite lenses, obscuring the latest evacuation convoys. The equinox, indifferent to passports, keeps equalizing daylight for saints and war criminals alike.
Consumers, of course, insist on symbolism. Americans who spent August denouncing consumerism are now lining up for “limited-edition” cinnamon deodorant. Germans debate whether to keep heating at 19 °C or finally cave to 20 °C, a moral dilemma ranked somewhere between vegan schnitzel and nuclear power. In India, the wedding-industrial complex pivots from monsoon pastels to marigold, confident that the climate crisis will at least ensure good photos before the groundwater runs out.
And so the planet tilts, indifferent to our hashtags. Meteorologists measure, poets sigh, retailers salivate. Somewhere a lonely algorithm pushes targeted ads for weighted blankets to a teenager in Jakarta who just wanted to watch the leaves change on a VR headset. The first day of fall is less an event than a reminder that we are all, in the end, passengers on the same slightly wobbling ride—clutching our seasonal beverages, praying the Wi-Fi holds, and pretending the view isn’t on fire.
Conclusion: The equinox arrives whether we have our existential house in order or not. Enjoy the brisk air, ignore the smoke on the horizon, and remember that every autumn leaf is just summer’s obituary written in festive colors. Stock up on nutmeg; history suggests we’ll need the comfort.
