As the temperature rises, heatwaves kill, bushfires and droughts ravage the world, floods and disasters mount up, coral bleaches, species creep and ice melts there are still those who believe the fake news put out by right wing sites supporting polluting industries.
Once attached to an emotional stance they refuse to accept the evidence – preferring to play ostrich. Finally they wake up when it’s too late.
Sucked Dry
No more words or reason,
No love or hope,
No friendship or dreams,
To sully the day
With false expectations.
Now reality must rule
And bathe the world in grey –
For colour has fled
And joy has been vanquished
So that we are doomed to live
In among the dregs.
Empty as the void,
As the vacuum of space,
Sucked dry of humour
And devoid of wishes
With which to kindle any flame.
Opher 10.7.2016
Sucked Dry
Once life was full of hope and wonder, laughter and friendship; it was so easy.
There were sufficient discoveries for a thousand life-times. It burned.
Now I am much older than that and my idealistic naivety has been replaced by the mundanity of life. Lately I have felt the energies dip on every front, the person I am change, and my dreams have become tainted with too much reality.
All my words haunt me with their imperfections. My hopes are sullied. I have had to step back and take a good hard look at where I am in life – I am not the cheerful, optimistic individual I have always felt myself to be. I am no longer optimistic or full of self-confidence. My ideals look like silly dreams.
So I wrote it in this poem. Perhaps it is just the Brexit Blues and I will re-emerge in full optimistic mode? Or perhaps the Brexit vote awakened me to the futility of fighting the global monster that corporate society has become? I have to find a way of saying goodbye to the gorillas, chimps, elephants and rhinos, the rainforests and wilderness, and get used to a future of war, inequality and greed, where exploitation is the currency and profit the only consideration?
To turn my back on it all and feather my own nest?
I despair.
From species creep, temperature recordings to extraordinary weather patterns, the evidence is there.
This disbelief in science and experts that Trump has exploited and emphasised is going to be our Achilles heel.
A world run without reason, just for profit, is a doomed world.
The evidence is all around us. There is more than money.
We are destroying the planet for profit for the wealthy!
The Last Party (For Greta)
It’s the last party on the Titanic
And nobody’s at the wheel.
The iceberg has come into sight,
We’ll soon hear the crunch of steel.
Let’s order another bottle of champers
And pretend that it’s all God’s will.
‘Shouldn’t someone be keeping watch?’
I heard a young kid shout.
‘It’s looking pretty murky.
There’s a lot of ice about?’
‘Don’t worry your young head,’
The gambler replied.
‘Leave it to the Captain.
Let them that know decide.’
‘But isn’t that an iceberg,
Looming in the dark?
Surely we should steer away,
Lest it leaves its mark?’
How everybody laughed
At the silly little girl.
And carried on a-gambling
Within the social whirl.
There was surprise and chaos
When the iceberg hit.
Nobody could have seen it coming?
Was the grand verdict.
There weren’t enough lifeboats
But the wealthy took their place.
They knew they would survive
The gathering disgrace.
Opher – 31.10.2020
I wrote this one for Greta Thunberg.
It seems obvious that there is a major catastrophe or two looming – not only global warming but the annihilation of species and pandemics.
We can still alter course and change our ways. There is time. But the calamity it looming.
It takes a child to point out the catastrophe that lies ahead.
There’s still nobody at the wheel.
Worrying times!
This last year was the hottest year on record!!
CO2 levels are the highest recorded.
Sections of the barrier reef are dying due to the warming process.
Seas are warming.
Sea levels are rising.
Low lying islands are in danger of disappearing.
The ice-caps are melting.
Weather patterns are changing. We are experiencing droughts, floods, hurricanes, storms, freezing temperatures, record high temperatures and changes in sea and air currents.
Donal Trump denies any of this is caused by mankind’s incessant output of CO2 through the burning of fossil fuels. He wants to reopen coal production and up the use of fossil fuels. He is talking of pulling out of all climate agreements. He has packed his cabinet with climate change deniers!
There is more to life than money! To make a fast buck and lose the whole world is a poor deal!
Let us hope that he does not do what he says he will do!! The whole world is at stake!
Donald Trump may turn out to be a major threat to the world’s environment, putting hundreds of thousands of species under threat, promoting major climate change and putting many communities at risk of such things as flooding, drought, extreme weather, hurricanes, crop failures and starvation. This could result in mass migrations of people and mass extinctions of plants and animals.
President elect Trump claims that manmade climate change is a hoax. He is threatening to pull out of the Paris agreement and reverse the Green Energy programmes. He says that he will promote economic growth by returning to fossil fuel programmes (coal, oil and gas), reopen plants and to hell with the carbon dioxide output or pollution.
He is solely concerned with the economy and jobs. The environment is not an issue.
This runs contrary to all the evidence accumulated on climate change. In the long term it will not only be an environmental and human disaster but also turn into a major crisis for the economy. I cannot help thinking that this is extremely bad news for the whole world.
In a worrying new development his administration has asked for the names of all the people involved in the Green Energy programmes and who have promoted Green Energy and been involved with climate change talks. The fear is of a witch-hunt.
Anyone who is involved with the environment should be anxious. If he goes through with his stated policy change, the USA, instead of leading in the clean up of carbon dioxide, will be greatly increasing its carbon output. This could be a disaster for the world and impact on the whole initiative to prevent global warming and protect the dwindling rainforests and animals.
If there is a continued increase in global temperature, created by human activity through the burning of fossil fuels (as most scientists now believe), it would have a devastating effect on wildlife and human populations. There would be radical changes in weather patterns leading to droughts, heatwaves, floods, desertification, hurricanes and extreme weather, melting of ice-caps, a rise in sea levels, changes in animal and plant distribution, death of corals and sea-life, changes in conditions for crops and have a colossal impact on wildlife and human populations.
For nature, already under extreme attack, this could be catastrophic.
This also does not bode well for other environmental initiatives. It would appear that the environment and wildlife do not feature in the world of Trump. All that matters is money.
Hopefully the experts will convince Mr Trump that he is wrong and the risks are far too great.
Hopefully he will not go through with his withdrawal from environmental agreements and a return to dirty energy.
The world is at stake.
Why not read up my views on the devastation of our natural world in my book Anthropocene Apocalypse. It tells the story of what is happening to the planet through our burgeoning numbers and destructive practices.
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