Jane Goodall quotes – Saving the planet and speaking on behalf of the animals who are being butchered.

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Jane is a naturist who first caught my attention from her work with chimpanzees in Tanzania. Way back in the 60s I was captivated by her book – In the Shadow of Man. She is someone I greatly respect who has worked to support wildlife.

Jane Goodall: 50 Years at Gombe

The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Me too. There are millions of creatures being killed daily. If nobody speaks up for them they will continue to be slaughtered. The world is already depleted of its fantastic array of life. Soon they will be gone if we do not do something.

Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help shall all be saved.

I am only a writer. The people who make the decisions are the rich and powerful. They have to be made to understand that this cannot go on.

The greatest danger to our future is apathy.

Throughout my teaching career I have strived to get my students thinking. They are the future. They need to be aware and involved.

Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.

We can all make a difference. There are millions of us who care. We have to keep making the powerful aware.

Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right.

We have to keep telling them to stop – there are better ways.

Lasting change is a series of compromises. And compromise is all right, as long your values don’t change.

The bottom line is that the environment needs protecting.

“I don’t have any idea of who or what God is. But I do believe in some great spiritual power. I feel it particularly when I’m out in nature. It’s just something that’s bigger and stronger than what I am or what anybody is. I feel it. And it’s enough for me.”

I’m an antitheist. I do not believe in god and I think that religion is very bad for us, but I do believe in a power that exists in nature, a vibration that connects us to the universe. That is something I’m prepared to call spiritual. That is what requires protection.

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Hope!

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Jane Goodall was one of my heroes! What a woman. She’s in her nineties now and still going. There is always hope.

The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for an Endangered Planet (Audio Download): Jane Goodall, Douglas Abrams, Jane Goodall, Douglas Abrams, Penguin Audio: Amazon.co.uk: Books

I was just walking up my hill yesterday and a small flock of birds flew over and wheeled above me. I stood and watched, transfixed. Nothing moves me like nature. I couldn’t make out what they were but it was stirring. I found myself thinking.

Five hundred years ago that flock might have been a hundred times bigger. Wild life proliferated. Everywhere was a mass of nature, big and small. It seemed infinite. Catching a thousand larks to pickle their tongues as a delicacy was not even considered wrong. Larks were so numerous you could never exhaust the population. I read with horror how in Greece they filled barrels with living tortoises and used them as ballast in ships because they were so numerous it was easier than gathering rocks.

Mankind’s inherent cruelty and inability to understand suffering in animals has always horrified me.

It’s taken hundreds of years but what we have now is the remnants of what once was wonderful. What once was everyday is now rare; what once was numerous is now solitary.

When the Normans invaded King Harold marched his army from one end of the country to the other down forest trails. The whole country was a forest. There were wolves, bears, beavers and so much wildlife they would catch and eat what they wanted. I read tales of herring shoals so dense that you could walk across them.

As a child I roamed the meadows. They were alive with chirping insects. Every flower adorned with bright beetles, bugs and hover flies, bees and butterflies. Hawk moths on the willows, stickle-backs in the streams. We collected frogs, newts, slowworms, voles, lizards and snakes.

Now those fields are silent, the streams empty of darting fish.

We live in the remnants and think that is normal.

I have to believe there is hope. There is always hope.

Roy Harper – Burn The World

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Roy’s best single!

The times I saw Roy perform this little ditty. Another epic. Sums up the stupidity of mankind for me. We are burning the world.

Burn The World – 1990

Awareness Records 1990

Roy Harper: producer

Roy Harper: acoustic guitar, vocals and song writing.

Dave Gilmour: guitar

Tony Franklin: bass

Kevin McAlea: keyboards

Steve Broughton: percussion

Engineer: Jacqui Harper

Photography: Colin Curwood

Roy wrote ‘Burn The World’ in 1984. When he had re-signed with EMI he presented them with this twenty minute demo. They rejected it on the basis that it was not a good commercial proposition.

   However the song is an amazing concept that is even more relevant today, thirty years later, when we are experiencing the impact of global warming (we are burning the world) and beginning to realise the catastrophic effects it will have.

   Roy sat on the recording for six years. He hoped that he might work more on its production, as he had successfully done with other epic songs such as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ or ‘Me And My Woman’, but that never came about. Without a music contract to a major label Roy lacked the finances to devote the time to such a project and he knew this was unlikely to happen in the near future. Yet he believed the song was important and began including it in his live sets. He continued developing the musical arrangement and received positive response from audiences. Rather than abandon the piece altogether he decided to put the song out as it was – basically a partially completed demo.

   When I first heard about Roy releasing the two twenty minute tracks – the studio version and live version – I immediately said ‘That’s a single, then Roy!’ And so it was!

   The live version demonstrates the way Roy was playing the guitar aided by the use of technology through the pedals, showcasing his versatility and amazing ability to produce and sustain a piece of this length, as well as Jacqui’s ability to handle the mixing desk and use the effects to the maximum. At times it sounds like a full band. Once again Roy lives up to the epithet of a one man rock ‘n’ roll band.

   The song itself is written in eight distinct sections:

Bing Videos

Anthropocene Apocalypse – Scenario 2 – The Population explosion and the future!

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Anthropocene Apocalypse

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In Scenario 1 the population continued to grow eating up space, wilderness and destroying all naturally living creatures. Technology dealt with the problems of food, water, energy, weather and even oxygen in the atmosphere. We lived in huge urban developments and the world is devoid of wild-life and natural areas.

Scenario 2.

The premise:

a. We realise the impact of our actions on the environment and limit our numbers, conserve the wilderness and wild-life, stop our habitat destruction and pollution.

b. We lay aside 50% of the planet for wilderness and wild-life. We do not allow roads, hunters or development in these areas.

We are extremely good at solving problems. We can easily create a sustainable future where wilderness and wild-life has a place.

The result:

a. We introduce contraception, education and family planning on a global scale and successfully reduce our population.

b. We use technology to produce better transport, housing, energy production, and food.

c. We do not have urban sprawl, deforestation, overfishing, or other unsustainable exploitation of the environment.

d. We raise the standards of life for all people globally so that there is no longer war, conflict or poverty. There are social services, pensions and sick pay enabling people to live without requiring large numbers of children to support them through hard times.

e. We produce technology that is not polluting and is sustainable. We have ample energy (probably through nuclear fusion and solar) and our farming methods are not cruel or ineffective. We can produce ample good food to support the population without encroaching on the wilderness areas.

f. The forests are conserved. Fishing is sustainable. The weather and global warming is controlled.

g. 50% of the world is teeming with wild-life that we can marvel at. The air, water and soil are not contaminated with carcinogens. We globally control the weather and global warming. Everything regarding conservation and pollution is controlled and enforced globally.

I know which of the two possible future scenarios I would prefer to live in.

The future is for our grandchildren’s grandchildren. In my own life-time we have destroyed over half of the world. I feel we are at the precipice. Will we jump?Posted in Ecology, environment, ExtinctionTagged conservation, Ecology, education, Extinction, idealism, journalism, Literature, Nature, Optimism, Politics, Population, Science, the future, Writing, Zeitgeist4 CommentsEdit

Anthropocene Apocalypse – Scenario 1 – The natural conclusion to our population explosion.

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Anthropocene Apocalypse

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Let us look into the future and extrapolate from where we are to where we are heading.

Scenario 1

The premise:

a. The population continues to grow

b. There are no catastrophes that wipe us out

Man is extremely good at solving problems. So let us assume that we negotiate our way through problem after problem. We do not annihilate ourselves through nuclear war or manufactured biological warfare. We do not succumb to a virus. We merely continue to grow in numbers.

These are the consequences:

a. Space and shelter. We need land and housing and our cities, towns and villages grow. The countryside becomes consumed in plastic and concrete. Roads connect and transport systems enable easy access.

b. The Wilderness. The wilderness and natural world become open to us and exploited for farming, mining, logging and habitation until there is no more inaccessible wilderness areas. Roads run through every place.

c. The Wild-life. The wild-life now has no habitat left, no food, shelter or way of living. It is butchered for meat, hunted for ivory or medicine (The rarer it gets, the more it is worth, the higher the price, the more worth the risk). The remnants of the wild things are corralled into parks or zoos and confined, protected and used as objects of tourism. Those considered pests, unpleasant or dangerous are eradicated.

d. Food. Even with all the wilderness opened up for farming, the seas fully harvested and hydroponics, genetic modifications and intensive farming methods there is not sufficient food for the burgeoning population. Food is produced from bacteria and fungus in vast industrial vats (Pruteen, mycoprotein etc. – already produced in large quantities – in our pies, sausages etc.), textured, flavoured and used as a meat substitute. Proper meat is a luxury food item.

e. Water. Water is a dwindling resource and desalination plants provide supplies.

f. Energy. Fossil fuels are replaced by large-scale sustainable technology – probably nuclear fusion supplemented with solar.

g. Weather. The effects of global warming are alleviated. The hurricanes and extreme weather conditions are now able to be controlled.

h. Oxygen. Oxygen is a natural product of photosynthesis. With the destruction of the forests and pollution of the oceans it is no longer being produced in sufficient quantities. Oceans are seeded to produce algal blooms and hydrolysis plants produce oxygen from water.

Our lives in these huge metropolises are highly controlled. Our environment is plastic. Our food, water and even the air we breathe is manufactured. We take our children to see the last remaining trees in the tree museum. We then go to the zoo to get a glimpse of and wonder at the little animals that used to run free in the wild.

It’s a vision of the future. It is quite possible. But is that the way we really want to live? Is that the world we want to pass on to our children?Posted in Ecology, environmentTagged Alternative, conservation, Ecology, education, Extinction, idealism, Nature, Optimism, Politics, Population, Writing, Zeitgeist

Undoing the damage!

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We can undo the damage that we are doing! There is hope!

We just need to stop electing greedy madmen like Putin, Trump, Bolsonaro and Johnson.

The Fight For The Future Of Our Planet!!

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Silent Spring – Rachel Carson in 1962

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Without nature we are nothing. I remember reading this back in the sixties and being appalled with what we are doing.

Poetry – Empty Words

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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

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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.