Poetry – The Horn – a poem about rhinoceroses and their imminent extinction. An Anthropocene Apocalypse poem.

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Poetry – The Horn – a poem about rhinoceroses and their imminent extinction. An Anthropocene Apocalypse poem.

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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

 

We are rapidly wiping out the wild things, the forests, 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.

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 decision in this world get made.

Anthropocene Apocalypse – 3.6 billion years of evolution – all interlinked.

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Anthropocene Apocalypse – 3.6 billion years of evolution – all interlinked.

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It has taken a staggering 3.6 Billion years for life to have evolved from one single cell in the glutinous soup of oceans that came out of a Billion years of heat, lightning, UV and gamma to create fourteen million species.

We cannot imagine those magnitudes of time. That is why so many people have difficulty understanding evolution.

All life on this planet has evolved to interact and support each other in one huge global web. The variety and splendour is breathtakingly awesome and we should celebrate it with all our hearts.

The green plants process our carbon to produce our food and oxygen.

The animals have feelings and senses analogous to our own.

We all have our habitats and niches and are interlinked.

Together we have changed the world dramatically. We have altered the climate, the atmosphere and weather. The world is how it is because of what life has done to it. There would be no oxygen without plants, no ozone to shield us from radiation, no fire to keep us warm.

Without an array of insects there would be no birds or insectivores.

Without the animals the flowers would lack pollination and fruit would not be dispersed.

We should value, respect and love it with all our hearts. This fragile web is what sustains us. Without all those plants and animals interacting we would not survive. They are our past, present and future.

Build a positive zeitgeist. Protect them all. Preserve our future.

Bolsanaro is destroying the Amazon – please sign the petition!

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https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/266638/

The population crisis – threatening to destroy the planet.

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7.7 billion and counting.

Increasing by 81.7 Million a year!!

Every one of which requires land, water, food and space to carry out their life.

Every one of which is responsible for forest clearance, habitat destruction and the death of nature.

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/

This is a madness that is destroying the planet!!

Anthropocene Apocalypse – 7.29 Billion and counting – heading for 12 Billion

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Anthropocene Apocalypse – 7.29 Billion and counting – heading for 12 Billion

humans H44-10819350 - © - Allgöwer Walter

There are now 7,293,000,000 people on this planet.

We all require water, food and fuel. We take up room; we destroy the habitat, pollute the water, air and soil and we will soon be 12 Billion.

The natural resources are being used up. The fossil fuels are being used. The climate is being affected. The forests are being destroyed all over the planet.

It is relentless.

If there were ten people they could eat, burn, slaughter and produce waste to their heart’s content. It would not make a speck of difference.

When you have ten billion all requiring wheat, rice, meat, fish, space, shelter, vehicles, fuel, gadgets and the rest it is destroying the natural resources.

Surely everyone can appreciate that this is simply unsustainable? Or are we blithely going to proceed until the last tree is chopped, the last wild animal butchered, the last insect poisoned, river besmirched with sewage, sea made stagnant and climate transformed into a greenhouse cauldron?

Will someone then say ‘Hey – I liked it better before’.

If we do not do something to stop it the politicians in hand with the businessmen will sell off the future to finance their yachts and penthouse suites; only then will they discover that they have to breathe the same air as us!

Anthropocene Apocalypse – A terrible death for Turtles.

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Anthropocene Apocalypse – A terrible death for Turtles.

 

Historically the poor large sea turtles have been hounded and tortured to the point of extinction. It’s eggs were stolen, its shell used for ornament and it was boiled for oil (sometimes alive). The turtles were heartlessly stacked alive upside down on decks of schooners so they could slaughter them for fresh meat when needed. One can only imagine the agonies they went through for weeks on end.

Today the situation is not much better. Their eggs are still stolen, their shells still used for decoration and their meat still eaten. On top of that they get caught and drowned in fishing nets, poisoned in polluted waters and die from ingesting plastic. Their breeding beaches are taken over by people and climate change is ravaging them.

They are beautiful and just one of the many, many thousands of species that we are destroying through our overpopulation, thoughtless, greedy action and callous brutality.

Action needs taking before we lose them forever.

Sacred Ground – a poem

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Sacred Ground

Once it’s gone it can’t come back.
Sacred ground,
Desecrated,
Ripped and torn.
Lies abound!
Bit by bit,
Under concrete
Dead and gone.
Chopped and shot,
Poisoned and mauled,
Short and long,
Raised to the ground.
Life once plentiful
Now is scarce,
Decimated,
Most profound,
Vestiges
Clinging onto
Desecrated,
Sacred ground.

Opher 4.4.2019

When I was young the world was full of life, jungles were unexplored, Africa teemed with creatures. My back yard was full of butterflies and bees, the ditches had sticklebacks, newts and frogs, hedgehogs came to call.
Nature is sacred ground. It is profound. It is being decimated.

Please help protect Brazil’s Rainforest!! Sign the petition!

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President Bolsanaro of Brazil is an extreme right-winger who puts profit before people and Nature. He is presently allowing the big logging companies and mining companies to destroy the rainforest at an alarming rate.

Money is all he cares about.

He needs telling that there are more important things in life. Please help protect this amazing place with all its wonderful life. Go to the link below and sign the petition.

We need to stand up against these bullies and vandals who are destroying our planet.

https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/amazon_apocalypse_22/?cCAwEjb

Anthropocene Apocalypse – great new policy on verges and wild flowers!

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Anthropocene Apocalypse – great new policy on verges and wild flowers!

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Congratulations to East Riding of Yorkshire Council! I assume it is a changed policy. I have been remarking on the number of wild flowers at the side of the road. It has made an exceptionally colourful display this Spring.

I wondered why this was.

I noticed that the verge cutting has been confined to one strip near the road. The rest was left over to the wild flowers. That is brilliant. The flowers not only look pretty but they are providing a huge amount of nectar and pollen for the bees and butterflies. Their seeds will provide food for the birds. I hope every county and country is doing this. Excessive mowing may make things a little tidier but far less beautiful. I prefer the flowers, butterflies and bees.

It is just the sort of thing we need to be doing to help our beleaguered insect population. The other big thing would be to stop the farmers spraying their crops with insecticides. The neonicotinoids are decimating the bees, butterflies and other insects. They need to stop.

I’d much rather have the odd mark on my fruit than kill off the insects!

By the Carpark – a poem

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By the carpark

 

By the carpark

Where the wood one stood;

By the stream,

Long since culverted in;

Where the new housing estate now stands

On what used to be a marsh,

A vole hides among the rubbish.

 

Near the runway

For the new airport;

By the side of the new field,

Reclaimed from wasteland;

Alongside the new road,

Bringing travellers to and fro;

On the roundabout

That used to be a copse,

A tiny mouse shivers

Under a newly planted shrub.

 

Opher 18.4.2016

 

Nature is hanging on under the constant development as habitat is flattened. The streams culverted, the ponds filled in, trees felled, hedges grubbed up, marshes drained and the shrubland cleared.

Progress is great isn’t it? Expansion is good. So many more of us; so many less of them.