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Climate change is a phrase we hear all too often, but do we really listen?
“Our planet, the Earth, is, as far as we know, unique in the universe. It contains life.” David Attenborough –The Living Planet (1984)
Sir David Attenborough is the gentle voice of BBC Wildlife’s successful department. Soon he will present what he terms as an urgent documentary. In spring, BBC will air Climate Change – The Facts. Now facts are often questionable and open to interpretation or accusation of being fake news. I vehemently hate that term: fake news. Bullshit is bullshit and fake news is a tosser denying criticism. The world’s population more than doubled since 1950. Prove me otherwise.
“If we [humans] disappeared overnight, the world would probably be better off.” David Attenborough – The Daily Telegraph (12/11/2005)
Sir David Attenborough is 92 years of age. He could retire. He could kick back and count the letters that follow his name (OM CH CVO CBE FRS FLS FZS FSA FRSGS). He could reflect on his two brothers John and Richard, or sit down and listen to his relative Tom in The Tigger Movie. The Attenborough clan permeate the world of stage and theatre. Sir David’s father had once been the principal of the University College, Leicester. It could be said that his family haven’t done bad. They don’t need to work at Primark or Spar to earn a living. Yet no, Sir David, cracks on. He opens debate, he fuels fires which need dousing. The young Sir David would carry his passion to this day for wildlife and nature. However, in recent years he has become a leading voice for global concern. An unqualified expert. The people’s champion for change.
“This is the loneliest and coldest place on Earth, the place that is most hostile to life.” David Attenborough – Life in the Freezer (1993)
As a primary school student in the 1980s and warly 1990s, I would always hear about the Greenhouse Effect and Acid Rain. Spray deodorant and cans suddenly became friendlier. Keep Britain Tidy campaigns swept through classrooms and eventually the streets of Manchester. Trees were planted, like what Peter, Dan and I planted with BTCV in Highfield Country Park, Levenshulme. To this day, I take pride in seeing that little difference, everytime I walk there. There was talk of a future with mysterious windpower and cars would all be electricy-powered. As time went on, we’d attend seal clubbing classes, where we learnt that seals had no interest in dance music and nor did we get a technique on how to bash the cute creature’s skulls in, essentially we heard of the horrors people go to to make a jacket and a steak. Almost Everyday Shit™ seemed to be up against things not necessarily in our own paved backywards but effecting man (or woman… or other) around the corner, or further afield. Even as far as Hyde or Belgrade. Suddenly, I found myself in secondary school discussing Not Really Quite Everyday Shit™. Teenage boys had to stop grabbing their flacid cocks and the girls had to stop doing whatever it is that girls do. We were the future generation and hope. It was our responsibility. But, evidentally, we fucked up. Not Really Quite Everyday Shit™ didn’t go away. Now the next generation could be the last generation with a chance to fix it. Sir David Attenborough said so.
“Ever since we arrived on this planet as a species, we’ve cut them down, dug them up, burnt them and poisoned them.” Sir David Attenborough – The Private Life of Plants (1995)
On present day Earth, we can probably divide people into three camps. Within those camps, there can be further division. Division is important. Camp one is classed as the deniers. They’re useless as a voice and obstructive. They possibly have vested interests in wealth. Camp two are the changers. They need to be heard. They seek to make a difference. Competively they can make a lot of noise against camp one. Camp three are too busy, simply looking after number one, or their families or feel unable to make a different. Camp two often feel that they are too selfish and ignorant. Camp one enjoys their silence. Camp three probably recycle but couldn’t be depended on to ask for recycling bins to be installed. The camps are unclear and people fluctuate from camp to camp, mostly due to discomfort, lack of clarity and by way of reaction to Almost Everyday Shit™ changing to something outlying and worrying.
“It seems sad that on the one hand such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and exhibit their charms only in these wild inhospitable regions. This consideration must surely tell us that all living things were not made for man, many of them have no relation to him, their happiness and enjoyment’s, their loves and hates, their struggles for existence, their vigorous life and early death, would seem to be immediately related to their own well-being and perpetuation alone.” The Malay Archipelago (1869) – Alfred Russel Wallace
We’re aware of plastic bottles as a problem. Everyone is. The bloody things are everywhere. I am guilty too. Sometimes, they’re unavoidable for hygiene reasons. I try my best to deposit them in recycling bins or places that I know someone will take them for recycling. But what if say Theresa May [Insert Prime Minister here], Donald Trump (unlikely) or Xí Jingping [习近平] banned disposable plastic bottles at source. The factories. That’d be the place. Keep them away from people. Permit reusable, and deposit-based larger bottles that must be returned, cleaned and recycled by any means. Take away anything below a certain capacity. Plastic must exit the ecosystem. It needs us to remove it. There are many ways to do so.
“we can ensure that there is still a place on Earth for birds in all their beauty and variety – if we want to … and surely, we should” The Life of Birds (1998) – Sir David Attenborough
History has led us from the past to the present. It was a simple linear transition, unless you are Tom Cruise and his associates. Is Scientology a religion or cult? [Let’s discuss that one day, hopefully without fear of cyber-attack reprisal] Well, we’re here in the Anthropocene. The age of the human. Homo sapiens. Latin meaning wise man. We’re the only living human species. Things change and species often have a limited time on Earth. One thing we know, is that supersizing a meal at the American Embassy isn’t good for us. But, has that prevented overconsumption and stopped deforestation, because we no longer need a bigger paper bag? Have we learnt that overexploitation of lands leads to deserts and not desserts. How much weight does every fish in the sea have compared with that of the plastic in the seas?
“Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it’s time we control the population to allow the survival of the environment.” The Life of Mammals (2002) – Sir David Attenborough
Opinion matters. I’m with Sir David Attenborough. Individual action is not enough, “real success can only come if there’s a change in our societies and our economics and in our politics”. The world’s temperatures (ask the Mongolians) may be soaring, and we are the likely cause. Planes, cow farts and all that are the debated and often argued origin. We need to think of ways to cut this crap down. Get on Three Seconds by National Geographic. A video with a message that we should think about. It has 287,319 views compared to The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger’s 90 million plus views. The same honey badger, or one of the 12 subspecies, may be of least concern now on the conservation status but few are seen in Guangdong, and this used to be their ‘hood. Or will we all be another fossilised-brick in the wall, soon enough?
“The fact that they are solar-powered means that their bodies require only 10% of the energy that mammals of a similar size require.” Life in Cold Blood (2008) – Sir David Attenborough
Perceptions of place matter. If a road is dirty, people and especially lesser-educated people will chuck their crap on it. There’s no snoberry in saying lesser-educated people intended. Some people have never had access to education in the ways that I have – and I for one was never going to go to Harvard or Oxford University, unless they needed a cleaner. This is the way of the world: the haves and have-nots. But, if Billy Billionnaire at Taxbucks Willing Avoidance Trade Specialists Ltd wishes to fund a litter awareness and education programme with the money they denied the state(s) that their Monopoly Conglomerate department sublet, then feel free to do so. Ultimately, your man (woman, transgender or other) on the street will be unaware of that plastic bottle’s effect on the river downstream or the air that they burn it into. We are capable of educating each other.
“If we and the rest of the backboned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if they were to disappear, the land’s ecosystems would collapse.” Life in the Undergrowth (2005) – Sir David Attenborough
Politics is something we’re told to embrace. The complexity of an electorate and their representatives messing up and not knowing where to go, is seen globally. See, Brexit and the Trump administration’s political circus. So, how do we get those in power to focus on saving us as a species and those other species around the world that we could do with saving? As a British person, I know that writing a strongly worded letter to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), down at the U.N. isn’t a bad idea. But, if we all did that, we’d need a lot of recycled paper or energy to power those emails. Would they mark the emails as junk? Possibly. Do they deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007? No. Okay, they did, but having to share it with Al Gore, hasn’t changed much, or anything. The inconvenient truth is that we need mass action on a global scale. We need laws and directives to stop bad things and create things of use. Taking inspiration from conferences and internal flights etc doesn’t help. Bringing a duster and a shovel to an earthquake doesn’t work. We need the masses for the masses. We need actions.
“Every one of these global problems, environmental as well as social becomes more difficult – and ultimately impossible – to solve with ever more people.” How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009) – Sir David Attenborough
Issues will always be a problem. There aren’t rooms for the 14th Dalai Lama to sit in with the Chinese Administration, or Northern Ireland to talk to the Republic sensibly. Turkey and Syria have beef. Israel needs to open up more. The U.S.A. needs to bring home a few fighter planes. The Church of Croydon may have similar problems with death worshipers from Norway. There’s a can of worms out there when two opposition parties have two ideals or beliefs that can’t flex. For us as a planet, we need to shed our differences and share technologies and ideas. Life is finite or infinite in some religions. I ask, does reincarnation, make you less worried or more? If reincarnation were true, there’d be X amount of total individual lifeforms on Earth, continually coming back as X amount of total individual lifeforms. So, in one generation there may be 6 billion people, but many centuries later there may be 6 billion cockroaches because 6 billion people can no longer inhabit the Earth. Does reincarnation stretch beyond Earth too? Does it include every microbateria or virus?
“I never never want to go home; Because I haven’t got one; Anymore” – There Is a Light That Never Goes Out – The Smiths
Proposed adaptations for humanity cling onto some Buddhist thinkings. We must be fully endowed with higher knowledge and ideal conduct. In other words, stay off Twitter. Get over to Bhutan and let’s learn a thing or two. Would controlling our ever-growing population be a good thing? We humans leapt from needing 200,000 years to hit the 2 billion mark as a species, to 200 years nearly touching 7 billion. Surely, that is far from sustainable. The current growth rate of 1.18% per year is expected to drop. Disease, lack of biodiversity, natural resource exhaustion, ecosystem imbalnces, environmental degradation, ocean acidification, global warming, and ecological crisis are terms that we will hear mre often. Overpopulation will test our mettle. Our resolve will lead to conflicts on a more regular basis as we battle the increasing heat and try our best to survive. If we act now, we can reduce that risk.
British scholar Thomas Malthus scribbled down in 1798 that we’d exhaust Earth’s resources for food by the mid-19th century. He was wrong. How wrong? Well he could have been out by a few centuries. Since then, expert after expert have delivered messages and issued warnings. Now with meta-analytics, computer models and sound studies based on huge banks of data, we’re creaking on the abyss. The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organisation carry the Latin, fiat panis (“let there be bread”) but there are more Fiat cars being turned off a production line than strategies to ensure bread can be produced sustainably. They say that in the next 30 years we need to produce 70% more food.
“Sometimes when this place gets kind of empty, Sound of their breath fades with the light. I think about the loveless fascination,” Under The Milky Way – The Church
Catastrophies are in motion. Pollen distribution is changing. Glaciers are receding faster than my hairline. The beetles are dying. Bees, the great pollinator of all life, are declining in numbers. The buzz is lessening. Fish are filled with plastic parts and we eat them. The fish are also ingesting our drugs and decanted chemicals into the sea. We’re making them infertile or causing gender imbalances. Every continent is under ATTACK. Every sea and ocean are under ATTACK. Even red crabs get attacked by crazy yellow ants introduced by us. ATTACK. We stamp and kick every stone on Earth and leave our mark, whether intentional or not. We don’t just leave footprints. ATTACK. We carve great big trenches and leave areas vulnerable to landslides, forest fires and things that stop us rolling out red carpets for fire-haired Nicole Kidman. The news will focus on Miley Cyrus losing her home more than that of a village in Syria. ATTACK. We’ve abandoned humanity and embraced celebrity and we’re too blind. Blind, blind, blind, blind, blind… as Talking Heads would sing. Still, a monsoon that washes a village of indiginious people who don’t buy Apple iphones counts less than someone from Yorkshire having to replace a flooded shed’s lawnmower. ATTACK. Right?
To again quote Sir David Attenborough, “Surely we have a responsibility to leave for future generations a planet that is healthy, inhabitable by all species”. Will there be a generation born now, that when they reach adulthood, will no longer be able to see elephants or tigers in the wild? Why can’t a kid from Guangdong see a Giant Salamander anymore? Where does the boy born in Dongguan go to see a South China Tiger? Why do we have WWF for Nature, EDGE, and why do these kind of things tend to be charity and independently backed? Shouldn’t we learn from Botswana, Norway, Bhutan, Namibia, and Tanzania? Lonely Planet did.
“Trade is a proper and decent relationship, with dignity and respect on both sides.” A Blank on the Map (1971) – Sir David Attenborough
But, why bother? A nuclear blast, an earthquake or a volcano can cause more damage globally than a generation of people. Well, nature is nature. It happens. We’re the benefactors of our destiny, and we’re the keepers of our fate. Why not tidy up where we live? You don’t shit in your own bed, do you? Okay, that has happened to one or two of us and on old age, it may happen – but surely, we never choose to do so. I apologise to any purveyors of scat. Not the jazz singing kind – and not the word meaning go away, or the Indo-Pacific fish, that likely has plastic inside its system, either. Nor is it the Special Combat Assault Team, or the badly named Shrewsbury College of Arts & Technology. Don’t google it. Scatter! Why not?
“To suggest that God specifically created a worm to torture small African children is blasphemy as far as I can see.” Metro interview with Sir David Attenborough (29th Jan 2013)
We have the technology to do something. The wind turbines, the solar panels, the recycling plants, the nuclear fuels to shut down the fossil fuels immediately. We have the education to understand blue carbon, and models to specialise schools into specific fields. Imagine a super city, dedicated totally to environmental protection and species conservation. Every country needs one. Similarly, every country needs to consider that populations matter. If we don’t control ourselves, then nature will. Great extinctions usually work. An ice age here and there or a huge weather change. We can prevent that, if we really want. Or we can believe an all-powerful, all-merciful God created a parasitic worm that will eat through a kid’s eye? Let’s get over our beliefs and start doing something about the things we know about: the world is changing.
“If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.” Sir David Attenborough (Climate Change Conference 2018)
Potential effects, very much like the warnings on a cigarette packet, include death. Actually, mass extinction and human total extinction are feasible. Extinction means forever. No more. Gone. Hatari and their pink elephant from Iceland will be happy suddenly. Human sacrifice, mass hysteria, or dogs and cats may love each other, as predicted in Ghostbusters. I wonder if in our last days of humanity that we become perfectly self-awakened, and say the words, in the style of Hinx (Thespian’s go-to-man Dave Bautista) from Spectre, “Shit!” The last human may send a Whatsapp message to an otherwise empty group – and with that the power of humanity may fade forever. Or we could start recycling, reusing, reducing and the other bits we usually ignore. As Tommy in Snatch said, “Proper fucked?”
Of course, I’m no expert. It could all turn out swimmingly.
再见/ Zài jiàn / Bài bài / Ta’ra / Goodbye / Hwyl Fawr / Dhanyabaad / Alavidā
ACTON28: AGAINST THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC 