It takes Billions – a poem about destruction overpopulation.

Posted on by Opher

It Takes Billions

 

Billions – it takes billions.

5 Billion to evolve,

8 Billion to destroy,

How many Billion to put right?

Billions – it takes Billions.

 

First you have to wake right up.

First you have to realise.

First you have to value it.

First you want to try.

 

Billions – it takes billions.

5 Billion to evolve,

8 Billion to destroy,

How many Billion to put right?

Billions – it takes Billions.

 

If 8 Billion were to become 4

There wouldn’t be a problem

Any more.

 

Opher 13.4.2018

 

 

There are 8 billion of us sharing this lifeboat of a planet with all the myriad types of life. 8 billion of us taking up room, killing, flattening, cultivating, building, taming, simplifying, reducing and eradicating.

The effect is dramatic.

The teeming masses of which we are part, from which we came, from which we draw our sustenance are being reduced by the minute.

5 billion years of evolution, slow step by step, is being undone in mere decades.

But if 8 billion was trimmed to 4 then we could all have room to live in harmony and all of us would be winners. We would all have our lives enriched.

8 Billion reasons – A poem of despair.

Posted on by Opher

8 Billion Reasons

 

8 Billion reasons why the gorillas must die

8 Billion reasons why the elephants will die

8 Billion tragedies

For all of them.

 

Opher 13.4.2018

 

 

8 Billion Human beings chopping down trees, spraying pesticide, burning wood, hunting animals, eating ivory, culverting ditches, producing sewage, filling dustbins, buying goods, mining, peeing, shopping, driving down roads, building houses, flying around the world, eating, drinking, playing and having sex.

8 Billion reasons why the rhino and elephant have no chance at all.

The Human Tide

Posted on by Opher

The Human Tide

 

The human tide is springing high.

The love of babies a reason why.

The love of sex a pleasure for to die.

The family a disaster.

 

Opher 13.4.2018

 

 

I love babies – we all do. That’s the trouble. There’s too many of them.

We humans need things to live – room, food and water. In order to meet our needs we are chopping down the natural world and killing the wildlife. We use pesticides to protect our crops and maximize food production but it is killing off our bees and insects causing problems with pollination and starving to death the birds and animals that feed off them.

Our numbers are such that our impact is immense. Not only is it killing everything else off but it is altering the climate of the planet.

I love babies but it is time we reduced our numbers and became more responsible.

We are all part of everything!

Posted on by Opher

As a biologist I know that we are part of the environment. We live in an ecosystem. We are part of that ecosystem. There is not a special environment for human beings. We are dependant on the whole thing.

Right now we are destroying that ecosystem at a terrifying pace.

I personally would hate to see the demise of hedgehogs, frogs, toads, lizards and slowworms. I would hate not to see swifts and swallows wheeling in the air or not hear the chorus of songbirds.

I would hate to find we had slaughtered all the rhinos, chimps, gorillas, elephants, tigers, lions and tens of thousands of other wonderful creatures. And we are killing them all.

That loss would make our lives all the poorer.

But what will affect us just as much is the alteration to our climate, our weather, the water, food and atmosphere. We are degrading and losing soil, fresh water and fish. We are dramatically altering the planet.

Now you might not care about it; you might selfishly say that it won’t affect you much, but it sure as hell will affect your children and grandchildren and it affects all of us in terms of impoverishment of our lives. Nature is life affirming and renews the spirit. We’re making the world more sterile, plastic and uniform. That is a huge loss.

Growth and More – a poem

Posted on by Opher

Growth

 

Growth! Growth! Growth!

The mantra from behind.

Growth! Growth! Growth!

Raising profits from the blind.

 

More!  More!  More!  More!

We’re exhorted to consume.

More!  More!  More!  More!

Planting seeds for all our doom.

 

Forest and chimp pay the price.

Elephant and tiger pick up the tab.

Climate and weather change in a trice.

Generations down the line suffer the stab!

 

Growth and more

Both have a cost.

Those who rake it in

Are not the ones who lost.

 

Opher 16.6.2018

 

 

We are madly careering ahead putting short-term profit in front of long-term loss. Relentlessly growing in numbers. Relentlessly chopping down forests. Relentlessly killing off wildlife. Relentlessly polluting. Relentlessly destroying the very ecosystem on which we depend.

More and growth are the things that will kill us.

I for one do not wish to live in the sterile hell we are creating out of our greed and stupidity.

Take Heart Too – a poem.

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Take Heart Too

 

Take heart from those who see the bigger picture

And realise they are minor players

Within a mighty stroke of luck

That gave us eyes to see;

For they are aglow

With understanding

And see each second

As a gift.

 

Opher 16.6.2018

 

 

I wrote this as an adjunct to the previous piece. It always seems amazing to me that evolution has provided us with the brain, consciousness and senses with which to glimpse this most amazing universe. What a stroke of fabulous luck! We should celebrate every second of it.

Consciousness is a thing of wonder.

What if there were no conscious beings to witness the majesty of this cosmos? What a waste.

Nothing is Surplus – A Poem

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Nothing is Surplus

 

Nothing is surplus

Nothing wasted

Nothing less

Nothing greater

 

From virus to dinosaur

It is all a piece

Within a giant jigsaw

 

Opher 23.6.2018

 

 

I am always amazed by the way nature interlocks. Evolution has filled every niche with the right choice. They are so complicated and sophisticated. Everything has its place.

More time than we can imagine has created such a wonderfully intricate jigsaw.

What distresses me most is the cavalier way we dismantling it.

The last sad dregs – a poem

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The Last Sad Dregs

 

When the last sad dregs are drained

The glass will still retain a residue

No matter how thoroughly we sterilise.

It will just take time.

 

When everything is finally gone

It will come back.

It has done so before.

But it is never the same.

 

Maybe next time

It will be even better.

The forms more perfect

The intelligence more pure

Unsullied.

Perhaps it will be

An improvement in every way?

All might agree that it was for the best.

 

Yet even if it were

That would not forgive us

For what we now do.

 

Opher 23.6.2018

 

 

The Last Sad Dregs

 

We are a huge ecosystem catastrophe relentlessly steamrolling nature into nonexistence.

Species after species crashes into oblivion as we seek profit and our numbers spiral.

When we are through and we have destroyed it all there will still be some left even if it is just a residual slime. Evolution will rebuild the spectrum given time.

The planet will once again be full of a myriad of creatures, the wails of sound and flash of colour. There will be creatures every bit as wonderful and exotic as what we now have. It just won’t be the same.

Maybe intelligence, real intelligence, will once again evolve. I don’t think they will forgive us for what we are doing.

Two Swifts Shrieking – a poem

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Two Swifts Shrieking

 

Two swifts wheeling in the sky

Shrieking with delight –

Not missing their brethren.

 

In days not long gone

Those same skies

Were full of flocks of screaming swifts.

 

The air, now a desert,

Teemed with insects

That were scooped with such glee.

 

Do they now shriek with delight or horror?

 

Opher 23.6.2018

 

 

Two Swifts Shrieking

 

It is so noticeable to me that the skies are emptying. We were so used to seeing the swifts, swallows and housemartins, the filter feeders of the skies, putting on their aerial displays.

Where once there were flocks now they appear in pairs. The flocks have gone.

The skies that once buzzed with insects are empty. The insects have gone. There is no food.

The barns and house eaves that provided nesting sites are all knocked down, cleaned up and gone.

It is hard to believe the changes that have taken place in the space of one lifetime.

Were those two swifts really shrieking with delight!

Leaf and Scale – a poem

Posted on by Opher

Leaf and Scale

 

Leaf and scale

Eye and tail

Precious  Precious

 

Protoplast

Chloroplast

Precious  Precious

 

Bud and tree

Petal and bee

Precious  Precious

 

Fin and feather

Fawn and heather

Special  Special

 

Whale and ant

Fauna and plant

Special  Special

 

Brain and brawn

Shrimp and prawn

Special  Special

 

Limb and life

Husband and wife

Special  Special

 

Awe and wonder

No kill or plunder

Precious  Precious

 

Planet and sky

Sun on high

Precious  Precious

 

Forest and air

Bluebell and bear

Special  Special

 

Water and rock

Hen and cock

Special  Special

 

Earth and worm

Virus and germ

Precious Precious

 

Warmth and light

Oxygen and sight

Precious  Precious

 

Biosphere

Centromere

Precious  Special  Unique

 

Opher 25.6.2018

 

 

Leaf and Scale

 

The whole of our biosphere is one amazing event and utterly unique. Every bit of it is special and precious.

If only we could stand back and see how miraculous it is and worship every last piece of this incredible jigsaw of life.

Instead we treat it with disdain and destroy it with derision, contempt and callous disregard.