CLIMERICK: The Chant of ‘Drill Baby Drill'

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So - can a UK poet plead with a former US President and be heard?

I doubt it; but it’s worth a try. And maybe some of my US friends .... will want to send this to their friends..... who will.... 

I can but hope.

Here’s the Climerick plea

The chant of ‘Drill Baby Drill’

is one that will totally kill 

any Climate-wise hope: 

Trump, please kill that trope

while there’s time for R-ecovery still.

Trevor Thorn

And you can find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

Image credit: Pixabay free image - edited

CLIMERICKS: Encouragement from HM Charles III

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My resolve to post Climericks at least twice a week has been maintained, other than a short break recently because we have been away on the beautiful island of Iona where we experienced gales too gusty to walk in safely and cancelled ferries - almost certainly pointing to a future of more similarly adverse weather due to climate change.

And as we return to home to pick up our regular lives, and watch our King and Queen in more exotic locations where climate change threatens island homes, it feels time to remind ourselves of the recognition of the Climericks project, by the King whose Correspondence Secretary, earlier in the year (April) wrote to us from Buckingham Palace:

 

'His Majesty greatly appreciates you sharing your ideas with him on this significant matter, and enjoyed hearing about your creation of climate-themed limericks in order to raise awareness for environmental issues’.

And you can find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

CLIMERICK: An Eco-Churchyard Climerick (1) In This Little Patch of Creation by Trevor Thorn

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A Churchyard:

In this Little Patch of Creation 

With many churches working to promote the biodiversity in their churchyards, here is a novel way to invite people in. Further Climericks will build on this invitation.

 

In this little patch of Creation,

we invite you to find restoration

for your body and soul,

in this place, with its rôle -

to give peace that will last generations.

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

NEW CLIMERICKS WILL APPEAR ON THIS SITE TWICE WEEKLY - SO KEEP LOOKING TO STAY UP TO DATE.

CLIMERICK: Materials Science is Where You Will Find, by Trevor Thorn

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Materials Science is where

you will find a great body of care

for sustainability

at scale capability.

Financiers, Go! Invest there.

 

In the September 2024 issue of Materials World are articles on bringing colour to solar panels making them more attractive to architects; recycling of critical metals from spent alkaline batteries, improved recycling of solid state lithium batteries; The next generation of smart offshore windfarms; how precise measurement is vital in the race to net zero and 3D printing of natural material flooring panel (to replace steel) and more

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

NEW CLIMERICKS WILL APPEAR ON THIS SITE TWICE WEEKLY - SO KEEP LOOKING TO STAY UP TO DATE.

CLIMERICK: When Next You are Eating a Spud by Trevor Thorn

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When next you are eating a spud,

Think! Its flowers, stalks and leaves were just crud.

But research has found

that this garbage abounds

with fibres for fashion – that’s good!

 

Article in The New Scientist 7^th September 2024 reports on the findings by a team at Imperial College London that the fibres from the above-the-ground waste from potatos (estimated to be 150million tonnes a year) can be used as a cotton fibre substitute,with the potential of saving huge crop space and diminishing water usage.

  

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

NEW CLIMERICKS WILL APPEAR ON THIS SITE TWICE WEEKLY - SO KEEP LOOKING TO STAY UP TO DATE.  

Climerick: If Top Level Sport is Your Dream by Trevor Thorn.

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If top level sport is your dream,

watch out! Who’s financing your team?

If they thrive upon coal,

Gas or foul diesel fuel,

‘Kick ‘em out!’. Raise a real head of steam.

 

BBC Climate news reported on 18.09.24

Fossil fuel companies have invested more than £4bn in sports sponsorship "in an attempt to divert attention from their role in fuelling the climate crisis and harming human health”, according to a new report. 

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

NEW CLIMERICKS WILL APPEAR ON THIS SITE TWICE WEEKLY - SO KEEP LOOKING TO STAY UP TO DATE.

CLIMERICK: It’s Almost Too Good to be True by Trevor Thorn

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It’s almost too good to be true,

free basalt for farms from Undo*:

when crushed it takes in

CO₂, that’s a win

and makes farmland more fertile too.

Article accessed from BBC Climate section at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg3legn80xo dated 12.09.24 which reports 

'A company called *Undo is now offering basalt free to farmers and sends its own contractors to spread it on the land.

Because it captures carbon, the process is funded by carbon credits which big companies buy to offset their planet warming greenhouse gas emissions.

XinRan Liu, director of science and research with Undo, describes it as a transformative measure in the fight against climate change.

He said: "It's the most scalable technology. We have huge deposits of rock globally ready to go and we have farmlands in every single continent."

"All of that means that we could achieve billions of tons of removal on a very fast timescale for the climate.”

Some comments following the news item focused on the fact that the scheme is being financed to allow some major polluters to purchase carbon credits. Whilst understanding their indignation, the basis of a scheme that has the potential to absorb substantial quantities of Carbon dioxide, seems to me to be one that is worth celebrating. Doesn’t the planet need all the help it can get?

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

NEW CLIMERICKS WILL APPEAR ON THIS SITE AT LEAST TWICE WEEKLY - SO KEEP LOOKING TO STAY UP TO DATE.

CLIMERICK: Friday 13th Sept 2024: Climerick: Today is a Day to be Glad

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Earlier protest leading towards today’s success

Friday 13^th Sept 2024: Climerick: Today is a day to be glad

 

Today is a day to be glad 

That a new coal-mine’s deemed to be bad

For Cumbria and further

As it would help murder

The Earth; so was quite clearly mad.

 

 

A triumph for Friends of the Earth and South Lakes Action on Climate Change (SLACC). Reported by BBC News: Friday 13^th Sept 2024

‘Plans to build the UK's first deep coal mine in more than 30 years have been quashed.

Two campaign groups had brought a legal action over the previous government's decision to grant planning permission for the site near Whitehaven in Cumbria’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrlrkz5k2ro.

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

NEW CLIMERICKS WILL APPEAR ON THIS SITE TWICE WEEKLY - SO KEEP LOOKING TO STAY UP TO DATE.

CLIMERICK: Midnight is So Close to Hand by Simon Thorn

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Welcoming my Nephew, now living in Vancouver, as a Climerick contributor (Trevor Thorn)

Midnight is so close to hand

How much more can our planet stand

Carbon’s still on the rise

Yet planes still crowd the skies

Why the hell ain’t all short-flight shit banned? 

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

NEW CLIMERICKS WILL APPEAR ON THIS SITE TWICE WEEKLY - SO KEEP LOOKING TO STAY UP TO DATE.

CLIMERICK: Solar Lights in an African Village by TT

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Image from Solar Links website

 

Solar lights in an African village 

will avoid lethal kerosene spillage;

they cut through the gloom,

and reduce toxic fumes:

even more, make for CO₂  shrinkage.

 

This Climerick arose out of receiving an Email appeal from Eko,an international campaigning organisation based in San Francisco: Solar Links Initiative is a registered UK Charity which, in my view, appears from its financial information lodged with the Charity Commission to have the capacity to meet the aims of the appeal ie. to equip all homes in appropriate villages to ensure even handed support throughout the selected village(s) . I have made a modest monthly donation directly to Solar Links Initiative (SLI) because the simple logic that the project resonates strongly with the aims of Climericks.

Response from Phyllida Purvis of SLI received 14.09.24 

'I am also delighted to receive your limerick and will certainly use it. It makes one smile – and think, as I am sure all your climericks do! Thank you very much ... we, and most importantly, the families who move out of the darkness, are most grateful.'

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

NEW CLIMERICKS WILL APPEAR ON THIS SITE TWICE WEEKLY - SO KEEP LOOKING TO STAY UP TO DATE.

CLIMERICK: United Utilities Cease by Susan Sanderson

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United Utilities cease
Releasing sewage please:
Lakes and rivers should be
Pollution-free,
So healthy fish stocks can increase

BBC website https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyx6wvlqz0o 30/8/2024

 

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

NEW CLIMERICKS WILL APPEAR ON THIS SITE TWICE WEEKLY - SO KEEP LOOKING TO STAY UP TO DATE.

CLIMERICKS: AN INVITATION

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If you should happen to be in the Cambridge (UK) area between Monday 2nd September and Friday 13th you are invited to visit MICHAELHOUSE CAFE where there will be a display of CLIMERICKS, all drawn from this blog site. Michaelhouse is in Trinity Street, just a few doors down from The University Bookshop.

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

NEW CLIMERICKS WILL APPEAR ON THIS SITE TWICE WEEKLY - SO KEEP LOOKING TO STAY UP TO DATE.

CLIMERICK: On many Pacific Isles by Susan Sanderson

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On many Pacific Isles
Most homes are within three miles
Of the rising sea
People there could be
Victims of first-world lifestyles

 

Article in Guardian (28/8/24). Headline: Rising sea levels mean Pacific islands in 'grave danger', warns UN chief

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE   

CLIMERICK: You Tourists Who Visit the Lakes by Susan Sanderson

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This Climerick is aimed at those who are and will be visiting The Lake District, so is particularly germane just ahead of the UK Bank Holiday weekend. But will also be relevant to many Lakes elsewhere in the UK or other countries that attract high volumes of tourist traffic

 

You tourists who visit the Lakes,
please avoid making mistakes.
Don’t drive; Park and Ride!
in nature take pride;
don’t litter or pollute the lakes!

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

CLIMERICK: Doctors Jailed for Climate Change Protest

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Doctors jailed for climate change protest

had their licence reviewed by weird process,

then absurdly, withdrawn

through wild claptrap that’s spawned 

in the GMC – they’re the real ogres.

 

Two doctors who have taken part in peaceful climate change protests have been jailed and to add insult to injury, the GMC have disgracefully withdrawn their licences to practice. (Observer report 18.08.2024)

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

With My Back to the Chapel Wall

 

With my back to the chapel wall

I know, from Cedd’s faithful orientation

I am facing East.

And in a bracing onshore wind, 

I look out to sea.

Within moments I am assailed 

by a breath-sapping gust

and simultaneously seized by the vista.

A makeover after millennia

of changelessness.

Tall white tapering candles of steel

surmounted by swirling blades

eagerly drawing energy 

from the same - but amplified wind.

These are our hope.

But grief stricken, I see

that even now

they are threatened by

the menacing blackness

of earlier constructed rigs.

In the foreground,

grasses sway and dragonflies dart,

while they still can.

CLIMERICK at St Peters on The Wall, Bradwell-on Sea-Essex

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Chapel of St Peter-ad-Murum close to

The Othona Community

I’m on an astronomy retreat this week with The *Othona Community in Bradwell on Sea, Essex. Rhythms of the community are dictated by brief morning and evening reflections in the close-by 7^th century chapel built by St Cedd and swimming! That is because the only a proportion of the guests are here for the Astronomy; for a greater proportion, this is a family holiday with a guest star, Ivy who at 18 months has, I think, managed to charm everyone.

 

Every activity here is shared in some way by the guests and I was invited first to take an evening reflection, yesterday to say grace at lunchtime, and today I have been on lunch-time washing up duty, which is no small task with 90 guests. Thankfully the community has invested in modern cleaning equipment which is powered by off-grid electricity: an impressive feature which makes hosting such a large holiday-time population, practicable.

This, being my first summer week attendance here, I was a bit taken aback to be asked to lead grace on Tuesday lunchtime. I decided to follow a conventional meal-time Grace with a Climerick specially composed for the event!

 

My friends as we eat and drink well,

Please give thought to whom you might tell

That Othona’s off-grid,

In a small, vital bid,

To help head off Climate change hell.

I think you could regard this as a quasi-grace and is another use

for the ubiquitous Climerick. It is also a challenge for those who

feel comfortable composing short verse to introduce Climate 

change thinking wherever possible

 

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

*Find out more about the off-grid Othona Community at Bradwell on Sea, Essex, HERE

CLIMERICK: What a gift? It Would Make Many Glad by Trevor Thorn

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St Cuthbert’s Island, off Lindisfarne, Northumbria.

An islet under threat from rising sea levels. The islet

has been adopted by Eco-Verses as

a symbol of the global risk to low-lying places.

 

What a gift? It would make many glad,

if new buildings had to be clad 

with solar to heat

their air-con’s - so beat

the need for grid power: that’s not bad!

Idea From New Scientist – Readers’ Letters 27/7/24. Heat could, of course be directly used for much more than just aircons – but they are such hungry beasts!  

 

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE  

CLIMERICK: If You’re Part of the Great Band of Cleaners

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St Cuthbert’s Island, off Lindisfarne, Northumbria.

An islet under threat from rising sea levels. The islet

has been adopted by Eco-Verses as

a symbol of the global risk to low-lying places.

This couplet is part of a set which is addressed to all sorts of trades and professions, especially those which have large numbers - and might get overlooked by policy-makers. It reinforces the fact that Climate chaos affects EVERBODY.

If you’re part of the great band of cleaners 

who sometimes feel you are ‘not-seeners’,

this is time to break-out

and raise up a shout,

‘Clear the mess that’s been made by ‘No-Greeners’’.

 

How to do that’s not easy to know,

so, while you are out on the go,

place a climerick where

lots of people might stare

which says ‘Turn off the dirty fuel flow.’

Find more about the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE