CLIMERICK: If Wood Can Build Taller Than Steel

Photo credit BBC/Modvion

If wood can build taller than steel

It gives it a heightened appeal

For huge turbine towers

Giving yet greener power

With a low weight and cost -What a DEAL!

 

BBC Climate News 28.12.23 features a Swedish Company (Modvion) which is building modular wooden turbine towers for land-based constructions. Transport of the modular units is easier than moving huge steel towers, so there are many benefits to this system approach

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

 

As of Old, A Prophetic Voice

Pixabay free ‘demonstration’ image

As of old, a Prophetic Voice

Goes unheeded by many, through choice;

Now with prophets arrested 

Our leaders attest to

Their shocking pro-fossil-fuel ploys.

Mid-October 2023 and Greta Thunberg, among others, is arrested for joining a Climate change protest in London.

CLIMERICK: On Climate Change, Let Us Be Brisk by John Hobbs, Vancouver Island

Picture Credit Pixabay free image

So what should we do?

 

On Climate Change, let us be brisk:

There’s a crisis right now on Earth’s disk!

No time for distraction,

We have to take action,

Or soon we’ll join “Species At Risk”!

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: When Looking for Holiday Joys

When Looking for Holiday Joys

 

When looking for holiday joys

Look for landlords who do more than voice

credentials of green;

they are part of a meme

of low carbon hols: perfect choice! 

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: How Dare The Devilish Shell?

How Dare The Devilish Shell

How dare the devilish Shell

sue Greenpeace, when Shell create hell

in oil-bearing places

kicking over the traces

of land laws where ethnic folk dwell.

 

Shell intend to sue Greenpeace for £1.7m damages they claim were perpretated by Greenpeace supporters boarding a ship transporting a platform to Shetland. (Source BBC Climate News 9^th Novr 23). 

• At the Alto Rio Guamá Indigenous Territory in the state of Pará, Indigenous people allege that the carbon credit-generating company pressed communities to sign blank sheets of paper; Funai’s legal office received an offer of 50 million reais ($10.1 million) in advance for the signatures of Kayapó communities. (Source Mongabay 14.11.23)
• Royal Dutch Shell, plc (Shell) began oil production in the
  Niger Delta region of Nigeria in 1958 and has a long
  history of working closely with the Nigerian government to
  quell popular opposition to its presence in the region. At the
  request of Shell, and with Shell’s assistance and financing,
  Nigerian soldiers used deadly force and massive, brutal
  raids against the Ogoni people throughout the early 1990s
  to repress a growing movement against the oil company.
  The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), EarthRights
  International (ERI) and other human rights attorneys sued
  Shell for human rights violations against the Ogoni. After
  thirteen years of litigation, the case against Shell ended in a
  historic $15.5 million settlement for the plaintiffs.

·       In a court decision reached late last year, Indigenous communities from the Wild Coast of South Africa’s Eastern Cape have attained a landmark legal victory against energy and petroleum giant Shell. To win their case, lawyers representing the Umgungundlovu, Dwesa-Cwebe, and Port Saint Johns Indigenous communities, among others, argued that because Shell failed to consult meaningfully with local communities, the company’s efforts to explore shale gas off the country’s eastern coast ignored a crucial aspect of local custom. The victory has been hailed as a major breakthrough in the effort to stem the tide of climate change. But it is also a potent example of how Wild Coast communities are using the courts to fight for the right to determine what happens in their territory and strengthening their hand in a country heavily marred by colonialism.

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: Though One Person's Commitment is Worth by John Hobbs (Vancouver Island)

Pixabay free image

Though One Person's Commitment is Worth by John Hobbs

Though one person's commitment is worth

Very little in saving the Earth,

If billions try,

There's a chance we'll get by,

So do it for all that we're worth!

 

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: In Landfill, There’s Too Much Waste Food

In Landfill, There’s Too Much Waste Food

In Landfill, there’s too much waste food, 

Mouldering, that is not good,

Causes methane to form

So the atmosphere warms.

We should compost it; strew it; be shrewd!

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKSHERE

CLIMERICK: As of Old, the prophetic voice

I love this Icon of John the Baptist, painted by Pam, my wife in a week long guided course. It shows John as a virile young man, which he would have been at the time of his death, so takes us away from the elderly, wild creature that it is easy to imagine from the Biblical description of him. For me, this icon is the epitome of the sort of person who would have delivered the  messages of the ‘ancient prophetic voice'.

As of Old, the prophetic voice

As of old, a Prophetic Voice

Goes unheeded by many, through choice;

Now with prophets arrested 

Our leaders attested

Their shocking pro-fossil-fuel ploys.

Mid-October 2023 and Greta Thunberg is arrested for joining a Climate change protest in London.

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: We’ve Polluted Earth, Land, Sea, and Air by John Hobbs (Vancouver Island)

We’ve Polluted Earth, Land, Sea, and Air by John Hobbs (Vancouver Island)

We’ve polluted Earth, land, sea, and air:

We’re guilty, we haven’t a prayer!

But while t’jury is out

And of guilt there’s no doubt,

It’s the sentence that others will bear.

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: Hopeful of Hydrogen

Hopeful of Hydrogen

Is Hydrogen power hope or hype?

Detractors will all take a swipe

at its two stage conversion:

but hear this assertion

its future is fruitful and ripe.

Image from science.howstuffworks.com

and see Wikipedia: Isotopes of Hydrogen

 

(BBC Science and Technology item of 1^st July 2023 notes that hydrogen is now powering buses, lorries, vans, boats, heavy moving equipment and trains.It is the ultimate clean fuel provided economical extraction problems can be resolved – and they are increasingly likely to be.)

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: Scores of Sciences Signal the Same

 Scores of Sciences Signal the Same

Scores of sciences signal the same,

Not one science!

As many proclaim.

Earth NOW needs net zero

Not fossil fuel Neros

Who deny this, with false claims inane.

 

(It feels possible that expressions such as ‘following the science’ devalue the urgency of a deep climate concern by suggesting there is just one single science implying the danger we are in, whereas a multiplicity of scientific disciplines all point clearly in the same direction – we are at serious risk. Wikipedia’s entry of ‘Climatology’ shows a range of the sciences involved)

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICKS and A CLIMATE CONCERN TREE! Another way of encouraging conversation at #ChristmasTreeFestivals or #EndOfTermConcerts

 

The Climate Concern tree 

at Landbeach Church Christmas Tree Festival 

(Near Cambridge UK)

So here’s a further idea that uses CLIMERICKS as a way of starting Climate Concern conversations. 

With the encouragement of a friend to make a display in a 40-ChristmasTree festival, I worked out that it might be possible to decorate a recycled cardboard tree with CLIMERICKS, suitably designed for the season. You can see the outcome above. The cards are straightforward insofar as they are A6 in  size so can be printed out 4 to a page on light card or fairly heavy paper. There are several websites that offer free borders and each card can feature either one of the growing collection of verses on this site: OR, better, this is an opportunity for you and/ or some members of an organisation who want to express their support for much greater impetus in climate change mitigation initiatives CAN PERHAPS WRITE THEIR OWN.

Here’s a specimen sheet using four of the CLIMERICKS already on the site, which have some relevance to Christmas in the 21st century.

 

Insert the CLIMERICKS you think most appealing to the people who will see them. Cut the card and mount the individual cards on the tree. In the ‘tree’ picture above the cards are stuck on but could be hung on a real Christmas tree OR on a single branch such as that shown below either for Christmas or for other seasons.

This would also be a very straightforward project for SCHOOLS once pupils are old enough to be able to produce CLIMERICKS. Displayed at an end of term concert, the tree, with its CLIMERICK decoration could provide parents with understandings of how their children perceive the present-day climate threat. Interesting family conversations and student to student exchanges could emerge.

If this idea commends itself to you, but you do not find it easy to write verse, the index button A - Z of CLIMERICKS will give you access to a growing collection of usable verses and if you want to understand more about other uses of CLIMERICKS, 

CLICK  HERE 

CLIMERICK: Famed Naturalist - name Packham C

Famed Naturalist - name Packham C

Image from Wikipedia

Famed naturalist - name Packham C,

wonders how we can mount protest pleas

as climate’s become

global risk number one,

but campaigners get seized by police.

( One for the UK - with its government wanting to deter peaceful protest: other countries may have their own  prophets making similar decisions.)

Chris Packham, naturalist and long-term broadcaster appeared on Channel 4 (UK) 20th September 2023 in an hour long programme considering whether it would be right for him to risk prison to raise the profile of the anti-fossil fuel movement and whether that would be an effective protest action)

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of 

CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: Way Back in Pleistocene Days

Fossilised 'little creature' from Pixabay free images

Way back in Pleistocene days

little creatures evolved clever ways

To move with the weather

But today they can never

cross cities or six lane highways.

(the Pleistocene was a time of slow climate change between 2.6 million and 12000 years ago. This CLIMERICK raises the issue of Species Loss)

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: CO2 is essential for life

CO₂ is essential for life,

So why does it cause so much strife?

Fossil fuels cause excess

Which can sure make a mess

Of humans, the Earth and wildlife.

(Whilst CO₂ with sunlight and water is transformed into living matter through photosynthesis and then leaves Oxygen in its wake, an excess of CO₂ acts like a global, uncontrollable greenhouse)

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

  

CLIMERICK: A Garment Cries, ‘I’m All Forlorn

STARTING TODAY - A CLIMERICK EVERY DAY THROUGHOUT COP28 - HERE’s TODAY'S

Two versions (the one below, a CLIMERICK)

A garment cries ‘I’m all forlorn’

discarded before I’ve been worn;

bought as a ‘just maybe’,

when received, deemed unshapely,

I’m landfill - not dirty nor torn.

(Shamefully, under 1% of textiles are recycled or re-used!).

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

 

CLIMERICK for #COP28: Carbon Capture is NOT the Game Changer

 

Carbon capture is NOT the game changer 

That Earth needs to get out of danger.

Watch! Gas and oil clans

hope to derail all plans

to stop drillings. But STOP’s Earth’s sustainer.

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: Said A Glacier ‘This Warming’s Not Nice’. by John Hobbs

Pixabay image - glacier fracture

 

Said a glacier “This warming’s not nice,

“And it comes at a terrible price:

“While the wildfires do kindle,

“My kind and I dwindle

”Soon you will be be fresh out of ice!”

(Switzerland's glaciers have lost a further 4% of their volume this year - the second biggest loss ever - after last year's record melt of 6%.

The statistics come in the annual report of the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (Glamos), whose team of researchers have been monitoring 176 of Switzerland's 1,400 glaciers for years. BBC Science report 29.09.23)

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

“Al-Gore-Rhythm” by John Hobbs

A most “Inconvenient Truth”!

While our treatment of Earth is uncouth,

The fruits of neglect

And the climate we’ve wrecked

Are things that we’ll leave to its youth!

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: A Generous Monetary Prize - Earthshot

EARTHSHOT

 A generous monetary prize

Can encourage ideas to arise

That will help mitigate

The earth-warming rate,

thus heightening our hope to survive.

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: If You’re Reading This During Your Teens,

If you’re reading this during your teens,

tell MPs you want policies green;

so there’ll be some real hope

that the planet will cope,

and the weather turn far less extreme.

.

(This is an invitation - no, a plea, to concerned teenagers to make MPs aware they will soon be or already are voter(s).

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

Let Climericks Be a New Tool

 Let Climericks be a new tool,

To challenge deniers and fools

Who say ‘Climate’s not changed’

Could it be they’re deranged?

Let these verses tell truth - that’s so cool!

Find the thinking behind the growing collection of CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: The Environment Mess We’ll Bequeath by John Hobbs

Two merged Pixabay images with

the help of Artrage

The environment mess we’ll bequeath,

In return for a funeral wreath,

Shows little of merit

For our kids to inherit,

It’s more like a kick in the teeth!

Find the thinking behind CLIMERICKS HERE

CLIMERICK: Deniers are just dinosaurs

Deniers are just dinosaurs

For fossil fuels are a lost cause

bringing weather extreme

Causing deaths - how obscene

When renewables are a safe course.

(The death toll rises with every extreme weather event - yet there are still thousands who are so blind they won’t see the link with  human induced climate change - dinosaurs!)