Trump the climate arsonist quote on the California/Oregon/Washington fires!

Posted on by Opher

As the worst fires ever rage through the western states Trump remains noncommittal.

When asked if it was due to climate change he says: ‘I think this is more of a management situation. When you have years of dried leaves on the ground, it just sets it up. It’s really a fuel for a fire.’

‘I don’t think science knows.’ – yes science does know actually – it’s there from all the scientists not employed directly by the polluters – it’s CLIMATE CHANGE!!!!

He then went on to suggest that other countries don’t have this problem.

Where has he been hiding? Doesn’t he read? What about the huge terrible fires in Australia this year? In Borneo, Philippines and the Amazon???

This is a world-wide phenomenon – along with flooding, droughts, melting ice, rising sea levels, hurricanes and changes in seasonal weather.

Human beings are hugely impacting on the climate and Trump is pushing fossil fuels and relaxing environmental laws, denying climate change and pulling out of international agreements!

A climate arsonist??? I’d call him worse than that when it comes to the environment. Bolsonaro and he are vandals who are not only jeopardising biodiversity but the health of the biosphere on which we depend.

Is the short-term gain worth this long-term loss?

Biodiversity – the big disaster. The Anthropocene.

Posted on by Opher

The tragedy of our destruction of biodiversity has been like a slow-motion car-crash that I have been observing throughout my life.

The destruction is ongoing, continuous and horrendous.

I have witnessed it in the UK and as I’ve travelled the world I have seen the evidence everywhere I have one.

In The UK.

The plants and animals I used to see regularly are disappearing fast. As a boy, I used to play in meadows full of wildflowers. I used to collect caterpillars, newts, frogs, toads, slowworms and grass snakes. They were common. Hedgehogs were everywhere. The fields were full of the buzz of insects. Big flocks of swifts and swallows swooped and fed. Streams were full of sticklebacks, dragonfly and caddis.

Those fields are sprayed with pesticide and herbicide. The streams are polluted or culverted. The hedgerows have been grubbed up, trees chopped down and ponds filled.

Where can the wildlife live?

Abroad.

The rainforests – the lungs of the earth – are disappearing at an alarming rate. Flying over the Amazon the sight of the vast areas of cleared forest is alarming. But the same thing is happening in Borneo, Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Africa. What was once impenetrable jungle (only fifty years ago) has roads running through it. The loggers and hunters have moved in. The farmers follow. The forest, along with the creatures it supports, is burnt.

I was quite shocked by a statistic that came out of the David Attenborough programme last night concerning the biomass of organisms.

60% Livestock

36% Humans

4% Wildlife.

That is what we have done in the last hundred years.

Our seas are being denuded of fish by huge supertrawlers. Our rivers are likewise overfished. Travelling down the Mekong I was amazed to see that through the whole length there were fishing enterprises taking even the smallest fish to batter into fish paste. What hope is there?

In Vietnam, everything that moves is killed. Even the paddy fields have traps to catch and eat insects. The jungles were silent.

I am appalled by the cruel, inhumane way we treat animals. They are caged in tiny cages, driven mad and killed in the most horrendous ways – being boiled alive, skinned alive or cut open to extract blood or gall bladders. Such insensitivity.

What is wrong with people?

This is not sustainable.

The delicate balance of nature not only supports this wondrous array of life but provides our climate, our food, our oxygen and atmosphere that keeps us alive.

Already we are seeing the huge fires due to global warming, the floods, droughts, heatwaves and changes in air and sea currents.

Nature can bounce back but we have to help it. We have to stop the destruction, reduce our population, stop the waste, put back the forests, the ponds, streams and hedgerows and start to act responsibly (and far less cruelly).

I think we are on the brink.

https://populationmatters.org/campaigns/anthropocene?gclid=CjwKCAjw74b7BRA_EiwAF8yHFEU-83LimHv9sMS8kwfZm2wvo6wFi4wIkrpz3f3bBLz-zj0Dp9YsJBoCzyEQAvD_BwE

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

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2016

Verified Purchase

Humanity has wiped out 60% of Mammals, Birds, Fish and Reptiles since 1970

Posted on by Opher

This is a worse crisis than Coronavirus or Global warming.

It comes as no surprise to me that this is the case. In my lifetime I have witnessed the crashes in population both here in the UK and abroad. As a biologist, and naturalist, I have found this incredibly distressing.

In the UK the creatures that were common in my childhood – the toads, frogs, newts, hedgehogs, slowworms, snakes and lizards – are now rare. The streams are devoid of life. The insects and butterflies are not buzzing around. The skies are not full of flocks of swallows and swifts.

In the Amazon the rainforest burns. In Africa, the chimps, bonobos and gorillas are being hunted to extinction. Everywhere I have travelled – Australia, Africa, South America, China, Phillipines, Borneo, Vietnam – it is the same story – deforestation and the destruction of habitat – a burgeoning human population – overfishing and hunting.

Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970. We are systematically destroying our planet.

massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe.

Mike Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF. “This is far more than just being about losing the wonders of nature, desperately sad though that is,” he said. “This is actually now jeopardising the future of people. Nature is not a ‘nice to have’ – it is our life-support system.”

In the UK it is relentless – every tree cut down, hedgerow ripped up, stream culverted,  ponds filled in, is another nail in the coffin. The mowing of verges, the spraying of fields. It is almost as if we hate nature.

Abroad they are chopping rainforest for agriculture. There are no places left for the gorillas, the orangutan, elephants or tigers. If they dare to ‘encroach’ they are killed.

I am told that people have to eat, to feed their children. The truth is that there are too many children.

Nature is our lifeline. It provides our atmosphere. We are part of a complex web that feeds the soil, pollinates our crops, gives us the oxygen we breathe and the food we eat – yet we are destroying it.

In the process, we are releasing pandemics and herding ourselves into cities and plastic environments.

We are endangering our own survival on the planet!

WE HAVE TO STOP!!!!

Poetry – From Factory to Field

Posted on by Opher

From Factory to Field

 

From factory to field,

Straight to another factory,

Without touching a single hand.

 

Our green fields

An industry,

Sprayed to extinction,

‘Til no creature

Lives upon the land.

 

Opher – 8.9.2020

Poetry – Icecaps and Polar Bears

Posted on by Opher

 

Icecaps and Polar Bears

 

Icecaps and polar bears,

Penguins and seals,

Whales and walruses;

They’re heading for the hills.

 

Seas are rising.

Land is getting hot.

Hurricanes and droughts.

The climate is shot.

 

Burning up the coal

The oil and the gas.

Breeding like rabbits.

Chasing the cash.

 

We haven’t woken up yet

To the time that’s running out.

We need to wake up

To what it’s all about.

 

Out there on Venus

It’s four hundred degrees.

If we don’t act soon

It’ll bring us to our knees.

 

Opher – 23.8.2020

Wildlife on Hornsea Mere – photos

Posted on by Opher

The mere has some great reed banks where a lot of birds nest. The birds coexist with the people who go boating.

It is a beautiful lake. It is the largest lake in Yorkshire and was used by the RAF for seaplanes. It is now a site of special scientific interest.

Here’s a few shots I took of the birds:

Poetry – The Summer of 49

Posted on by Opher

The Summer of 49

 

I was born in the summer of forty nine.

Spent my childhood wild in the country.

Not a stream or pond I didn’t wade through.

I climbed every last tree.

I build my dens and played my games.

Together we all ran free.

When it came to life I had it sussed;

I wanted to run a menagerie.

 

Then came the magic sixties

And the music began to play.

There were girls, Kerouac and dreams

And that menagerie faded away.

I was captured by Dylan, Harper

And revolution and leapt into the fray.

For those were the days of idealism

Escape from the social tourniquet.

 

Then came the angry seventies

And the dream began to fade.

The age of Punk and riots

Marked a nihilistic decade.

I raised a family

And the bills had to be paid.

But I was writing down my words

And with lip-service to the game played.

 

In the eighties and nineties

I had my fun, with gigs, meals and sights.

With friends there was much laughter

As we put the world to rights.

There was a world of madness,

War and environmental plights.

There was a mighty battle raging

A time of nuclear fright.

 

Now in the twenty-first century

The damage is there to see.

Nature is being plundered

And we’re struggling for liberty.

All around is corruption

In the lands of the ‘free’.

The whole world is swamped with people

Living in poverty.

 

The politicians’ greed

Is stopping us from action.

They divide and rule

Creating warring factions.

But I’ve travelled the world

And seen through this distraction.

Populist division

Requires a positive reaction.

 

Looking back through time

I’ve had my fun and more.

With plenty of fulfilment.

I’ve opened many a door.

But the underlying heartaches

Still leave me feeling sore.

The catastrophe of the planet

Rocks me to the core.

 

I’d like to live long enough

To see us making progress.

Dealing with overpopulation

And making suitable redress.

To restore nature

In the beauty of her green dress.

So everyone is made happy

With an end to all this stress

 

Opher – 8.8.2020

I just wrote this. It is very rough and ready and requires a lot of work but I thought I’d share it anyway.

To Nurture Nature! Or to die!

Posted on by Opher

You are all most probably sick to death of me going on about the huge damage that was wreaked on the habitats near where I walk. They mowed the wide verges down the entire length of the road and completely destroyed the vestiges of wild habitat. The plants were in full flower and alive with insects. The seeds and insects provide the food for the hedgehogs, voles, owls, kestrels and kites.

I used to go on a walk eager to see what wonderful creatures I was going to find.

Since the destruction of all those acres of habitat, I haven’t seen anything.

The verges are now becoming green as the decimated plants regrow.

But they are devoid of flowers. It is too late now. The flowers have passed their season. There will be no seeds for the animals.

These verges are devoid of most insects. Countless multitudes of insects were destroyed. Those are the food for the birds, hedgehogs and shrews.

The birds and creatures will have another hungry winter.

Further down, on another lane, there were areas of verge which had not been mown.

It is easy to see the rich profusion of life – flowers, seeds, bees, butterflies and other insects

We are being urged to keep little wild patches in our gardens for the insects, for the wildlife, yet, for no apparent reason, acres of wild habitat are mown flat, wiping out whole communities of plants and animals.

If we want to have the beauty of nature around us we have to protect it!

If we do not look after the planet I fear we will have no future!

Destroying habitat – Irony!!

Posted on by Opher

While walking up my hill – past the scenes of devastation where they have mown the wide verges, I saw a sign at the entrance to a field. So I went and had a look.

The ultimate in irony:

The sign was about how wonderfully they were managing the land and providing habitat for wildlife such as the grey partridge.

It says that the chicks need plenty of insects and seed.

To the left of the sign was the wide verge that had been mown flat – destroying all the habitat full of insects and seed.

To the right of it was the field freshly ploughed with no strips of wildland for the partridges, no stubble,  no seed, no insects.

Was this some kind of sick joke???

No wonder nature is taking such a battering!!

The beautiful Yorkshire Wolds in summer – Photos

Posted on by Opher

This is my usual walk. Since lockdown I have been doing a 10K walk every day. This often involves me walking up this hill on to the Yorkshire Wolds. There is a great view.

It is great to see the changing colours due to the seasons and weather.

I used to see some amazing creatures too – stoats, hares, foxes, kites, kestrels and owls – but since the mowing catastrophe they have disappeared.

Nature is so restorative and refreshing.

These pictures were from yesterday’s walk.