Silent Spring – Rachel Carson in 1962
Without nature we are nothing. I remember reading this back in the sixties and being appalled with what we are doing.
Poetry – Empty Words
Empty Words
Looking for loopholes,
False promises,
Empty words.
We are watching you.
The young will not forgive.
They will write your history.
Their words will be as harsh as the weather.
We are watching you.
Not enough wood for the pyres.
Not enough oxygen for the lungs.
Not enough understanding of the need.
We are watching you!!
We are watching you!!
We are watching you!!
Opher 23.4.2021
The politicians lie about the way they love and cherish the environment when all the time the only things they are cherishing is power and the size of their bank deposits!!
All over the world nature is threatened.
It’s time everyone came together to put a stop to this massacre!!
We are watching you!!
History will remember who it was who raped the planet!
Empty Words
Looking for loopholes,
False promises,
Empty words.
We are watching you.
The young will not forgive.
They will write your history.
Their words will be as harsh as the weather.
We are watching you.
Not enough wood for the pyres.
Not enough oxygen for the lungs.
Not enough understanding of the need.
We are watching you!!
We are watching you!!
We are watching you!!
Opher 23.4.2021
The politicians lie about the way they love and cherish the environment when all the time the only things they are cherishing is power and the size of their bank deposits!!
All over the world nature is threatened.
It’s time everyone came together to put a stop to this massacre!!
We are watching you!!
History will remember who it was who raped the planet!
Poetry – The Horn
The Horn
I’ve got the horn
Ripped straight
From the head;
Does wonders in bed.
An explosion of lead
Stagger
And dead.
Hacked clean
Into something
Obscene.
Poor eyesight;
It never saw us
The very last
Rhinoceros.
Opher 4.7.2015
The Horn
We are rapidly wiping out the wild things, the forests, and the wilderness as we increase in number and extend our range. Soon the whole world will be a huge concrete and plastic jungle.
We may keep the DNA safe so that in saner times it might be reconstituted into living organisms.
One day, when we’ve become wiser and more civilised, there might be a programme to reinstate nature. I’m not sure I would completely approve. Designed wilderness is a poor substitute but perhaps it will be better than nothing.
If we survive that long, that is.
The rhino is doomed because of superstition and money. You may as well use nail filings as rhino horn. They are exactly the same keratin. There is no medicinal value. It does not give you the horn. Yet the customers will pay. The rhinos will pay and the hunters get paid. That is how decisions in this world get made.
A Life On Our Planet – David Attenborough
A Life On Our Planet – David Attenborough
I’m reading this incredible biography of David Attenborough. It shows us just how much we have lost and how much more we are going to lose if we do not act.
For any deniers it should be compulsory reading.
| Year | World population | Carbon in the atmosphere in parts per million | Remaining wilderness |
| 1937 | 2.3 billion | 280 | 66% |
| 1954 | 2.7 billion | 310 | 64% |
| 1960 | 3 billion | 315 | 62% |
| 1968 | 3.5 billion | 323 | 59% |
| 1971 | 3.7 billion | 326 | 58% |
| 1978 | 4.3 billion | 335 | 55% |
| 1989 | 5.1 billion | 353 | 49% |
| 1997 | 5.9 billion | 360 | 46% |
| 2020 | 7.8 billion | 415 | 35% |
It is incredible to reflect back to times in the past and read records. Life on the planet was plentiful. What we now have are the vestiges of what was once around. We have destroyed the bulk of it.
The incredibly complex web of life is being systematically taken apart. Aspects are so interwoven and specialized, having taken millions of years to develop, that there comes a point where it all just fails.
When that happens soil becomes sterile, oceans stagnant, oxygen not replenished, climate changes and life on the planet is no longer possible – at least not as we would recognize it.
The bacteria would survive.
It would have to start all over again.
Stop Killing Elephants!!
It takes a ten year-old to tell sense to adults!!
Poetry – Hunting and Dreaming
Hunting and Dreaming
We came from the South
Across the ice,
Hunting and dreaming.
We spread throughout the world
Throwing dice,
Planning, fighting and scheming.
We conquered and bred
As feral mice,
Until the world was teeming.
Now we totter on the brink,
Paying the price,
As the world lies steaming.
Opher – 8.10.2020
Making our way out of Africa we followed the hunting. We were incredibly successful. Our numbers ballooned.
We wiped out the megafauna in no time at all.
Now eight billion of us are felling the forests, poisoning the land and working our way through the rest of life on the planet.
We’ll kill anything for profit or fun.
Sri Lankan Fruit Bats
These giant fruit bats are fabulous! There were trees full of them in the park – all chattering to each other – just hanging out! (Sorry)
Sri Lanka – some birds.
The bird life was brilliant.
More photos from Tophill Low Nature reserve
Egrets – let there be more egrets.
Opher's World 