Ballad for our Planet

A Ballad for Our Planet

We've had several Global Warnings about now undisputed warming

Since Rachel Carson felt the silence of a birdless barren spring.

Did we listen to the scientist who predicted gloomy dawnings.

As the world got much faster and politicians had their fling?

Some say we've reached the tipping point, the point of no return,

As the icecaps turn to water and raise up the salty seas,

And forest fires are fiercer and we're helpless as they burn,

And G-M mortified food production increase modern disease.

We should save our current currencies for the saving the Earth.

'Cause we cannot eat the money when all the chips are down.

All wars will have to cease making way for new rebirth.

Where it's Eco over Ego and democracy wears the crown.

Let's have harmony of religions then everyone is right,

We don't want politicians messaging punters and their votes,

Powerful Nature's fighting back and she's angry in her might,

So give a chance to save us now to the singers and the poets.

Individually we feel powerless under waffles, lies and spin,

And authorities want control of all our minds and souls,

They've taken our few pleasures and spin they are a sin,

The real sin we must deal with now is the melting of the poles.

The tall trees shudder at the chainsaw to make way for lowly grass,

That will fatten up the cattle and the banks of profiteers.

The tribes of their own counties, they will hassle and harass,

And trick them with selfish greedy laws and sin guilt and fears.

The power is in the sun and in the wave and in the wind

In the trees and in the ground, in free crops and vegetation,

And in the minds of humans if we all joined up to find

The solutions to our planet with more caring conservation.

Are we humans getting fatter, taking comfort from our food

Where it all goes oh nobody knows it's a mystery of life,

The more we visit, the more we eat, to refuse it might be rude,

Half of us food packing and the others half struggle and strife.

And all the trips on aeroplanes do we really need?

Carbonising the air of once healthy atmosphere

They may be cheap in money, but feed corporation greed,

All rushing off to distant lands and their citizens rushing here.

Let's not forget the damaging nets in all our world's seas

Catching all both big and small despite conservation pleas.

They'll be bereft with nothing left though people be on their knees,

As we pray with a wish for a bit of fish, we'll need a Barrister's legal fees.

The broad sheet and the handy spew forth the daily news

And propaganda to the masses scattered on the coloured page.

How many trees must die for this, a million different views,

And polite correctness takes the place of an Eco Warrior rage.

Let us be active, caring people, and let us take back our lovely Earth

And for the beautiful species on it, encourage a magical rebirth!

Together we can Save Our World

& Rescue Environment, Animation and People.

By Tom Donovan, Tarbert, Co. Kerry

© 07/07/07

This poem was inspired by the opening to a book written by Camille Flammarion, one of the earliest environmentalists.
Here is the opening:

Preface

In ea vivimus, movemur et sumus.
Of all the various subjects which invite a studious examination, it is impossible to select one possessing a more direct, a more permanent, or a more real interest than that which forms the subject of this work. The atmosphere gives life to earth, ocean, lakes, rivers, streams forests, plants, animals, and men; in and by the Atmosphere every thing has its being. It is an ethereal sea reaching over the whole world; its waves wash the mountains and valleys, and we live beneath it and are penetrated by it. It is the Atmosphere which makes its way as a life-giving fluid into our lungs, which gives an impulse to the frail existence of the new-born babe, and receives the last gasp of the dying man upon his bed of pain. It is the Atmosphere which imparts verdure to the fertile fields, nourishing at once the tiny flower and the mighty tree; which stores up the solar rays in order to give us the benefit of them in the future. It is the Atmosphere which adorns with an azure vault the planet in which we move, and makes us an abode in the midst of which we act as if we were the sole tenants of the infinite - the masters of the universe. It is the Atmosphere which illuminates this vault with the soft glitter of twilight, with the waving splendours of the aurora borealis, with the quivering of the lightening and the multiform phenomena of the heavens. At one moment it inundates us with light and warmth, at another it causes the rain to pour down in torrents upon the thirsty land. It is the channel by which the sweet perfumes descend from the hills, and the vehicle of the sound which permits human beings to communicate with each other, of the song of the birds, of the sighting of the wind among the trees, of the moaning of the waves. Without it, our planet would be inert and arid, silent and lifeless. By it the globe is peopled with inhabitants of every kind. Its indestructible atoms incorporate themselves in the various living organisms; the particle which escapes with our breath takes refuge in a plant, and after a long journey, returns to other human bodies; that which we breathe, eat, and drink has already been inhaled, eaten, and drunk millions of times; dead and living, we are all formed of the same substances..... what study can possess a vaster or more direct interest than that of the vital fluid to which we owe the manner of our being and the maintenance of our life?
The study of the Atmosphere, of its physical condition, of its movements, of its functions, and of the laws which regulate its phenomena, forms a special branch of human research. This science, which since the days of Aristotle has been designated Meteorology, belongs in part to Astronomy, which shows the movements of our planet around the sun - movements to which we owe day and night, season, climates, solar action, or, in a word, the basis of the subject. On the other hand, it appertains to Natural Philosophy and Mechanics, which explain and measure the forces brought into play. As it exists in the present day, Meteorology is a new science, of recent establishment, scarcely as yet fixed in its elementary principles.
We are assisting as its elaboration, at its struggling into life. The present generation has seen the establishment of meteorological societies throughout the different nations of Europe, and of special observatories for the exclusive study of the problems relating to the Atmosphere. The analysis of climates, seasons, currents, and periodical phenomena is scarcely terminated. The examination of the atmospheric disturbances, of tempestuous movements, and of storms, has been made, so to speak, before our own eyes. The science of the Atmosphere is the question of the day. We are just now, in regard to this study, in an analogous situation to that of modern Astronomy in the days of Kepler. Astronomy was founded in the seventeenth century. Meteorology will be the work of the nineteenth.
I have endeavoured to collect in this work all that is at present positively known about the important subject, to represent as completely as possible the actual state of our knowledge about the Atmosphere and its work - that is, about the air, the seasons, the climates, the winds, the clouds, the rain, the hurricanes, the storms the lightening, the meteors - in a word, the phenomena of time, and above all, the general upholding of terrestrial life. It is, in fact, a synthesis of the research effected during the last half century (especially during the latter portion of it) as to the great phenomena of terrestrial nature, and the forces which produce them. The great majority of us, inhabitants of the earth, no matter to what nation we belong, pass our lives without attempting to form an idea of our actual position, without asking ourselves what is the force which prepares us for our daily bread, ripens for us the grapes that give the wine, presides over the change in the seasons, and alternates the exhilarating blue sky with the rains and cold of inhospitable winter. Yet, why should we live in such a state of ignorance? I venture to hope that after perusing this work there will be no difficulty in understanding the life and movements of the globe. Everything which takes place around us is interesting when, instead of remaining as one born blind, a man has learned to appreciate external things and to keep himself in intelligent communication with Nature.
I could have wished to keep this work, destined as it is for the public, free from scientific terms and figure which constitute its basis. I have done so as far as possible, but without in any point sacrificing accuracy and precision in respect to observed facts. It seems to me, too, that what is termed the public (that is, every one) has become somewhat scientific itself, since so many excellent works have popularised ideas previously reserved for a small circle of the elect.

Camille Flammarion.

Paris

November 1871