The Anthropocene Apocalypse

Posted on by Opher

For anybody who cares for nature this book is a must. This is written by somebody who loves animals in the wild and despairs at the degradation of the environment that he has witnessed first-hand in his life-time. You reel at the cruelty and thoughtlessness, the stupidity and crass superstition. You boggle at the numbers of this mad population explosion that is to blame. You can see the panic setting in as we career towards an inevitable human catastrophe. Yet it is not all doom and gloom. The passion rips through your heart and the fury saddens you. But also in there is the ecstasy and love of the wonder that is this planet with its bountiful treasure-trove of nature. We write so that it may not come true. This book is not a mass of scientific facts or boggling information; it is one mans view from the vantage point of a long life of what is happening to this jewel of a planet. It is also a book about hope; hope that we can use our intelligence to put a stop to this pollution and cruelty before it is too late. There are ways we can make it work. They are outlined. The way forward is clear. All that is needed is the will to make it happen. If you care about the planet you should read this. It will change your life. Hopefully it will also change the world for the better!

Anthropocene Apocalypse: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781502427076: Books

is a passionate and always readable book conceived in love, gestated over a lifetime of travel and naturalism

Reviewed in the United Kingdom

Verified Purchase

This is a passionate and always readable book conceived in love, gestated over a lifetime of travel and naturalism, born in a burst of anger and hope. There are many vivid accounts of places visited, focusing on their flora and fauna, with plenty to celebrate and much to fear. Pointers for the future are given and I’d like to have had even more detail of these. But this is a book to inspire social change. The message is that we all need to work on the solutions. This is a valuable and timely book which throws down the gauntlet in our desperate search for survival and sustainability.

Standing in the Killing Fields

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Standing in the Killing Fields

I’ve stood in the Killing Fields

                And seen the piles of skulls.

I’ve been sickened

                By the torture camps of Pol Pot.

I’ve looked into the ovens

At Dachau

Where they fried six million jews.

I’ve been on holiday

                To Vietnam

                                And crawled along the tunnels

Of the Vietcong.

I’ve peered out of the trenches

                In Belgium

                                Stood in the craters

Where artillery shells

                Blew living people

                                Into shreds.

I’ve stood in many a military graveyard

                British, German, American and Argentinian.

I’ve read the names

                On the cenotaph, the Menin Gate, Tyne Cot, and a thousand memorials.

The dead of a million wars.

I’ve visited the sites

                Of the pogroms

                                The holocaust,

                                                The public burning of witches,

Catholics, Blacks, Jews and Native Americans.

I’ve walked past the basement

                In Prague,

                                Where the KGB tortured prisoners.

I’ve wandered across Tiananmen Square,

                Visited Amrita,

Stood in Turkey where the Armenians were massacred.

                Walked through the battlefields

Of Waterloo, Bannockburn, Hastings and the Somme.

I’ve read about Wounded Knee, Sand Creek and Little Big Horn.

                I’ve read 1984, Das Kapital, Brave New World, Mein Kampf, Animal Farm and A Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovitch.

I’ve read Silent Spring, The Biological Time Bomb and looked at the bear-pits, the bullrings and watched a live snake eviscerated on Snake Street.

There was always a good reason for all of it.

So, for me,

                The message is clear:

Be tolerant,

                Respect life,

                                Love each other,

                                                Love everything.

The other way is torture, war, repression and death.

The history of mankind is the history of pain, torture, war, massacre, hate and intolerance.

Unless we actively change that we are destined to live it again and again.

Let’s make the future better than the past.

I’ll drink to that with anyone!

Bit by Bit

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Bit by Bit

Tree by tree                                       Pond by pond

Ditch by ditch                                    Field by field

Hedge by hedge                               Bush by bush

Verge by verge                                 Copse by copse

Plant by plant                                    Animal by animal

We chop                                              We cut

We shoot                                            We rip

We mow                                              We fill

We build                                             We burn

We bulldoze                                      We saw

Without a thought.

                A billion tiny acts.

Leaving a trail of corpses.

Opher Goodwin – 23.4.2021

It is non-stop. Every day I walk up my hill to the sound of gunfire. I see a new building plot. I see another tree felled.

Where once were hedgerows, ponds, streams, frogs and butterflies is now a green wasteland carefully sprayed.

Poetry – 8 Billion

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8 Billion

8 billion brains

Threaten many trillion lives.

We decide what is worthy

And what is not.

8 million minds

Want to feed 8 million mouths

And they don’t care

About the damage done.

Opher – 8.12.2019

Overpopulation is the cause of the present climate and environmental problems. It is responsible for massive deforestation – as land is cleared for agriculture. It is responsible for over-hunting, over-fishing and the destruction of many habitats.

The use of pesticides is decimating insect populations.

The massive pollution creating by our vehicles, industries and domestic use is poisoning the planet.

We need to get 8 billion down to a manageable 4 billion. Problems solved!!

Poetry – Do Elephants Dream?

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Do Elephants Dream?

Do elephants dream

Of their slaughter?

Do they cherish life?

Do elephants wish

For a better life

For their children?

Opher 29.11.2018

Too many humans see animals as expendable ‘things’ to be shot, cleared away, driven out and treated with no care.

They are not ‘things’. They are creatures just like us who relish life, who care for their children, who are conscious.

Poetry – The Human Tide

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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.

Poetry – There’s Enough

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There’s Enough

There’s enough

For me and you

To share

If we are fair.

There’s no need

To grab too much –

To snare

More than our share

For if we truly care

And help our fellow men

And nature too

They’ll be more than enough

For me and you.

11.2.2017

There’s Enough

I yearn for fairness and equality, an end to arrogance and selfishness.

I crave a better world where a tiny minority are not exploiting everyone to cream off more than they can ever be worth.

I want a world built on sanity where nature is protected, where everything is not up for grabs and run for profit.

I want a happy world.

There’s enough for us all and nature if we only learn to do it better.

There’s nowhere near enough if we continue to destroy it all with impunity. We will destroy ourselves.

Poetry – Too Many

Posted on by Opher

Too many

People everywhere

Crammed in like matchsticks –

Boxes into boxes

Filling every corner

Driving out the life

Swatting the flies

With a pot plant on the mantle.

People everywhere

In cars careering into the future

On mopeds with dreams of cars

Frantically propelled

In pursuit of progress.

Providing food upon the table.

People everywhere

Marching purposefully along pavements

Staring ahead

With minds nicely contained

And dreams restricted

People everywhere

Sitting in front of screens

In offices with air-conditioning

And protocols

So that they do not have to think

People everywhere

In boxes within boxes

Watching boxes

Being boxed

And avoiding thinking about the box

They will all end up in.

10.2.2017

Too Many

What a shame.

There are too many of us destroying everything, reducing the beauty to rubble, creating wasteland out of wilderness, producing rubbish and consuming the world.

Too much filth, grime and litter. Too much smoke and gas. Too many kids.

We travel in boxes and live in boxes shut away from the natural world and are fed the views we are to assume. We are controlled, organised, restricted and contained.

There is a homage to Malvina Reynolds in here too. I do adore Malvina.

I wrote this before I travelled through Asia again and witnessed the tsunami of humanity that is engulfing the planet. It is far more destructive than any wave of any magnitude.

It leaves me full of dread on many levels.

Poetry – Just Deserts

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Just Deserts

Travelling through deserts

Filled with lifelessness –

Devoid of anything,

Even pity.

All that moves

Is the enemy

To be eradicated

With alacrity

Big or small

Feather or fin

There’s no room at the inn.

Hedge and pond

Bush and tree

Ripped out

In monocultural crime

Megafauna,

Microfauna,

Weed and seed,

All past their prime.

Opher 12.9.2016

Just Deserts

I was travelling back from London on the train, belting past field after field of stubble. The harvest was in.

The only things moving were the odd crows and pigeons.

This was England. Where once used to stretch unbroken, dense forest, rustling to the sounds of insects, trilling to bird call, and providing food for deer, wild boar, bear and wolf, there is now a monocultural desert.

We have systematically cleared the forest to farm the land. The indigenous animals were cleared with it. We left tiny oasis of wasteland, woods, hedges and ponds in which the remnants of the rich fauna hung on – rabbits, hare, hedgehogs, newts, lizards, slow-worm, grass snake, dormouse and linnet.

Now they are being cleared. The modern farm equipment has no use for hedge or pond – the bigger the field the better.

Anything that dares to intrude into the desert we create is eliminated with pesticide, herbicide and machine. We don’t need them. They get their just desserts.

Poetry – The Last Tree

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The Last Tree

When the last tree fell

There was laughter.

As the chainsaw bit

There had been jeers;

As the trunk crashed

And branches splintered

There were cheers.

As the last bird

Was blown

From the sky

There was a whoop

Of joyful triumph.

As the last Chimp

Was hacked

There was a smacking

Of lips.

There were no tears.

The tears were saved for later.

But when they finally fell

There was a flood.

By then it was far too late.

Opher 15.5.2016

The Last Tree

We cannot resist. There is pleasure in destruction. There is a cruel streak in humans.

One of the favourite stalls at the fairground is the one where people smash crockery with wooden balls. The line up the plates and dishes and people pay to delight at the way they smash, crash and fall.

  • The kid with the airgun sitting in his backyard and picking birds off the line, feeling a leap of pleasure as each one falls.
  • The idiots with the chainsaws who ringed a giant redwood to put an end to its two and a half thousand year life.
  • It goes on relentless as children’s first reaction is to stamp on the bug.

Life is not sacred.

There is fun to be had at the expense of forest and creature.

Even at the animal park yesterday where they had two amazing Eagle Owl fledglings on the lawn a man with his two children joked that they should be shot and eaten.

Yet we are part of that web of life. When it is gone we will follow. We cannot live on concrete alone.