This is a little different to usual, possibly a product of self-isolation, but if it gets the point across to even one person then the short time it took to write this silly verse is all worthwhile.
With lockdown in force you could forget,
That we face a much more serious threat,
Because when it’s all over and we’re let free,
There’s still a climate emergency
The pandemic comes at a mighty cost,
The economy in ruins and thousands lost,
A true disaster in its own right,
But a diversion from a bigger fight
If anything, lockdowns made clear,
The world did better when we weren’t here,
A few months inside after the PM’s letter,
And already the air quality is better
For years and years we’ve just been free,
To use resources recklessly,
And can anyone come to our defence,
We must have known the consequence
Jungles have faced sheer devastation,
To make way for more palm oil plantation,
And what’s the reason, why’s it sold,
To help prevent women getting old
Or maybe palm oils not the cause,
It could be for a more bovine resource,
Jungles cleared, the wildlife killed,
So we can have our bellies filled
Then there’s the things we throw away,
As we go about our day to day,
Everything’s picked up on the go,
Because single use is all we know
Its just too easy, we all got lazy,
And companies got plastic crazy,
So all that stuff we throw away,
Won’t biodegrade, it’s here to stay
Some gets recycled occasionally,
But most ends up floating in the sea,
Choking fish and strangling seals,
And ending up back in our meals
You like to think its not your battle,
And that all of this is tittle tattle,
But in the time it took to read this verse,
The situation got much worse
Forest loss isn’t that bad you reckon,
We lose a football pitch a second,
And species decline can’t be that bad,
Since the 70’s we’ve lost half we had
So have a think and don’t be cynics,
Its hardly bloody quantum physics,
You don’t really even have to care,
Just make little changes here and there
Recycle more, maybe eat less meat,
Drive a little less, try using your feet,
Let’s try now, everyone, wherever,
Because seriously it’s now or never!
Just take a minute and think, everyone dismisses the little changes because they think they won’t make a difference but doesn’t think about the bigger picture.
Say your drive to work is a 20 mile round trip each day, maybe try to work from home one day a week, if the lockdown has taught you nothing else it’s that working from home is actually not that bad. The 20 miles you save might not seem like much, but again think of the bigger picture, if you do that for a year that’s 1,040 miles. If you work in an office of say 50 people and everyone does that for a year that’s 52,000 miles, and all the associated fuel, saved. Plus, it saves you money.
Alternatively, maybe don’t flush the toilet every time you go, if you just have a pee is it really that bad not doing? An average modern flush uses around 5 litres of water (13 litres for old toilets). Again, this doesn’t seem like much saving but if you save one flush a day for a year that’s 1,825 litres of water. If every household in the UK did that the saving would be 50,735,000,000 litres of water in a year, the equivalent to over 20,000 Olympic swimming pools.
As was once said to me, ‘everyone doing a little something, however imperfectly, will make a lot more difference than a few people doing things perfectly’.