Just over two months in the new house and it’s feeling like home. Mia continues to be outwitted by the resident squirrel on its hunt for buried nuts, and I’ve discovered a wonderfully bizarre monkey puzzle tree on my regular walk.
In other news, the street is being put on trial for food waste recycling. In the spirit of every little helps the environment, we’re all hoping it stays. Of course, we need many more big helps, and like people all over the world, I watched the events of COP26 unfold on the news. And so, to continue with last week’s theme of climate change, I thought I would share a recent poem inspired by global talks and the dedicated activists demanding we all do better in fighting the looming calamity.
Fight the Calamity; By Susie Williamson
Are humans really the superior species,
Skilled in reasoning, language, solving difficulties?
Introspection is seen as one of our strengths,
So what came of the Paris Agreement?
Did we tighten our belts, get smart, or continue in decadence,
Turning a blind eye to owed recompense?
Cop26 comes round and the truth will be told,
To climate activists around the globe.
The suited and booted leading with false ideations,
Reckless in the knife-edge survival of Africa, and those island nations.
It’s not 1.5 or even 2, but a roadmap to 2.7 degrees,
Yet again, the same nations will be on their knees.
Or under water; some are already there,
Vanishing islands and coastlines, but with new gas fields, who cares?
Until Mia Mottley steps up and takes to the mic,
Calm and considered, but with words set to strike.
This PM of Barbados speaks for those without choices,
For the powerless, angry, despairing voices.
Her message is clear, her intent at the heart,
National solutions just don’t work.
Are we really so blinded and hardened, deaf to the cries,
So willing to turn our backs on countless lives?
So adept at othering, we seem to be,
Price tags on people, scrap humanity.
We talk peace and prosperity here in the west,
A blanket omittance of nations oppressed,
Prosperity, illusion if only one third prospers,
While the rest of the globe cowers and suffers.
In the face of calamitous threats, life under siege,
When will global leaders fess up and lead?
Will they mourn us on the front line? Eddy Grant once said.
Not when pound signs are favoured over existential dread.
Voice, ambition, action is lacklustre so it seems,
In solving global crises of climate refugees.
Will the path of greed harvest our common destruction?
Or will we choose survival via temperature reduction?
There’s no time, we’re at that fork in the road,
The train’s ready, horn blasts, all aboard!
Code red G7, G20, wake up at the COP,
1.5 to survive, 2 degrees and no backstop.
Just death to Barbuda, Kenya, Mozambique,
Antigua, Fiji, The Maldives,
Try harder the people of Samoa holler,
Don’t we treasure Barbados and the people of Dominica?
Tuvalu is sinking, it’s happening now,
Don’t sigh, don’t shrug, don’t sit back and ask, how?
Central banks work in trillions, too huge to fit in our heads,
We have answers, resources, so make a watertight pledge.
Sign up to the global peace army,
Say no to death, and yes to humanity.
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