Featured book – Anthropocene Apocalypse – Index

Posted on by Opher

IMG_2124

I think the index gives you a bit of a clue as to the content.

Index

 

Quote & dedication

Introduction

My worst nightmare

My best outcome

The most likely scenario

The long term effects of the Anthropocene

The decline in British Wildlife

Extinction of Species – Zambia & Zimbabwe

Extinction of Species – Cambodia & Vietnam

Extinction of Species – North America

Good things

Deforestation & Extinction – Peru

Road Kill – Australia

Road Kill – America

Further adventures in Peru

Heading out of Lima to the Ballesteros Islands

The Nazca Lines and Lake Titicaca experience

The Colca Canyon and that condor moment

Species extinction – Tasmania

Deforestation in Britain & Europe

The China tiger

Britain in Shakespeare’s time

Wales and the brigands

Los Angeles Smog and mountains

The Chinese experience

Modern man

Deforestation of Tasmania

Deforestation in Vietnam

Alteration of climate due to global warming

The argument against the global warming deniers

World population

Safari in Zimbabwe and Botswana

Second safari in Botswana

Sadness on safari

Zambia and flying round the farm

Hull and Urbanisation

Los Angeles – a tale of urban sprawl

Chongqing City

A cat in the road

New research and new dangers

Nuclear disasters

Spanish Field trip

Portugal & the chameleons

Australian wonderland

More Australian wonders

The start of Greenpeace

Mass migration

Australia – still going

Uneducated education

South Africa and the Whale

India – a place like no other

Australia – Cairns

Road kill yesterday

Senseless death of the toads

The Animal House

Natural History Museum

Yellowstone Park

My Davies the Biologist & Mr Tranter the Rural Scientist

Nuclear dumps

Louisiana swamps

Australia and the ozone layer

Travelling around Scotland

Fracking, the Seven Estuary Barrier, Nuclear and Wind Farms

The decline in wild-life in Britain in my life-time

Solutions

In Britain you can access my books on Amazon:

P1100514

Anthropocene Apocalypse:

Kindle Edition
£2.94 Read with Our Free App

 

In the USA:

Kindle
$3.99 Read with Our Free App

Poetry – Gorilla – an elegy to the inevitable demise of a relative of ours.

Posted on by Opher

Gorillas_2161968b gorilla-wet_1868015i

We share ninety nine per cent of our genes with the chimpanzees and gorillas. They are the closest relatives we have left after we eradicated our fellow human Neanderthals.

They are sentient, intelligent and peaceful. We are sentient, intelligent and ruthless.

They are hunted for bush-meat. Their babies are prised away from their dead mothers and sold. Their hands and feet are hacked off and sold as trophies.

The forests they live in are opened up with logging roads for the hunters to exploit; then the trees are sawn down to leave bare soil.

Their numbers decrease and the destruction is relentless as our numbers soar and greed, selfishness and necessity create a tsunami that is rolling over nature.

It fills me with hopeless despair.

Gorilla

Ninety nine per cent of us

Living wild and free;

Tight-knit family –

How we’d like to be.

 

Wandering, playing at ease

As they roam around.

Eating, watching

Secure in their ground.

 

Around them trees are tumbling

Sounds of chain-saws whir;

Disturbing peace,

Shivering the fur.

 

Yet it could be a sly shot

To snag easy meat,

Snatching a baby –

Chopping trophy feet.

 

Encroaching ever nearer

Inevitable

Cruel destruction

Writings on the wall.

 

Opher 16.7.2015

 

Poetry – The Story of Our Brother – a poem to the demise of the last Chimpanzee.

Posted on by Opher

chimp ptg00402816Chimp Female-chimpanzee-with-infants

The Story of Our Brother

One last breath

And then it’s done –

Into history.

One pull of the finger

And that’s

The end of the story.

The chimpanzee

Was just like me

But now

The blood will dry

And there’s no family

To cry.

The fossils will remain

For a while

And then it’s one more

Crime to file

And no one cares

How our brother

Fares.

When he’s gone

It’s done.

End of story.

Opher 4.7.2015

 

I was inspired to write a little series of poems. They came out of my Anthropocene Apocalypse writings and my conversations with my friends Kathy and Toby.

I have witnessed the whole-sale destruction of the world’s rainforests where-ever I have travelled – Peru, Vietnam, Australia, Tasmania, Africa. The story is the same.

I have witnessed the casual cruelty meted out to animals and the brutal way wild animals are slaughtered.

It distresses me.

As our numbers spiral the destruction increases and the slaughter escalates. The world is finite.

In my own life-time I may see the demises of tigers, elephants, rhinos, chimps, gorillas, lemurs and hundreds of thousands of others. There may well be no rainforest left.

I find that devastating. And believe me – it is real.

Vietnam – 70% of rainforest cleared in 40 years. Madagascar – just 10% left. It is relentless and stupid.

The last chimp will likely be shot by a hunter just like the dodo was. We share 99% of our genes but he will be meat on a plate. It is a terrible crime.

Anthropocene Apocalypse. Chimpanzees – our closest relatives.

Posted on by Opher

Chimpanzee-Images-8 chimpanzee-altruism_7212 - Copy Chimp elitismstyle_chimpanzee

The Chimps are hominids just like us. We share 99% of our coded DNA with chimps. We evolved from a common ancestor around 3-4 million years ago. That is recent.

There are two species of chimps. The Bonobo is presently on the verge of being wiped out.

We are really the third species of chimp. We have slight evolutionary modifications. We have evolved bigger brains and lost a bit of fur.

Chimps can use tools and can learn to speak a number of words. They exhibit a lot of the emotional complexities and learning behaviour of humans.

Presently, as our numbers surge and our lust for food, timber and land increases, we are destroying their habitat and butchering them for bush-meat.

chimpanzee - Copy

chimp ptg00402816 - Copy

We need to start caring for our wild-life and limiting our numbers. We are destroying the planet.