How to end 2020 one day sooner

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/12/2020 (908 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We’ve finally made it to the final stretch of this awful year. In just 30 days it’ll all be over, and 2021 can’t come soon enough.

No doubt in the weeks to come there will be retrospectives printed in every major publication on the most notable events of this year. No doubt most of them will look the same.

2020 started off bad. Wildfires burned out of control across most of Australia, and many species of animals unique to that ecosystem were put on the brink of extinction.

People thought the Third World War was about to start after an airstrike killed a top Iranian general and Iran retaliated by launching its own strike on a U.S. military installation in Iraq.

In the months that followed, racial tensions erupted in many parts of the world after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. By summertime, there was a locust plague so severe that one swarm was reported to be 60 kilometres long by 40 kilometres wide.

Of course, amidst all of this was the COVID-19 pandemic. It has killed nearly 1.5 million people worldwide, and the number is rising.

We’re told a vaccine is on the way, and mass inoculation should begin early next year. In the meantime, we’re living a restricted existence to try and bring spread of the novel coronavirus under control, which is tough on the psyche. It has also meant doomsday for many in the small business community.

At least they’re being told not to worry; the province is spending $75,000 on a social media campaign that’s supposed to help them.

When all is said and done, this will have been one of the hardest years any of us can remember. All 366 days of it, because of course the year we all want to end had to be a leap year.

Which got me thinking…

We all know the reason we have leap years is that one complete revolution around the sun isn’t completed in a perfect 365 rotations of the Earth. It’s off by about one-quarter of a day.

What many people don’t realize is that the exact length of one year is closer to 365 and-a-quarter, minus 3/400.

This means we get to skip three leap years every 400 years, and since we didn’t skip it in 2000, we have three ‘skip days’ left for the next 380 years. The next is scheduled for the year 2100, but why wait?

I propose we simply skip Dec. 31 and put ourselves out of this misery one day sooner. With nearly a full month to spread the idea, I say we start with the fastest and easiest way to spread the word — a social media campaign.

Is this idea really as stupid as it sounds?

Absolutely, yes. It is completely pointless, but why not try?

I’m told it can be done for about $75,000, and I can think of a government willing to spend public funds on just this type of thing.

Andrew Braga is a community correspondent for South Osborne.