I’m baffled how world leaders find the nerve 

to sign a pledge, then right before our eyes

fail the people they pretend to serve.

They know the price of oil but never swerve

from drilling more while greenhouse gases rise.

I’m baffled how world leaders find that nerve!

They buy the myth of endless growth, the oeuvre 

of economic frauds who feed them lies,

and fail ...

Read and leave comments (2)

Flags and placards round Big Ben

say 

PAUSE! PAUSE!

Shouts and chants of Waddawewant?

a 

PAUSE! PAUSE!

We call a pause on oil and then

we all lie down. We stand up again.

We shout demands at Parliament 

to 

PAUSE! PAUSE!

No new gas! No new oil!

PAUSE! PAUSE!

One point five degrees soon gone.

PAUSE! PAUSE!

Arctic in meltdown, blood on the boil,

w...

Read and leave comments (0)

Rolling down to london on a train,

the taught and shining buds

of Spring are bursting on the trees.

Wharfedale’s misted in a bluish haze,

but heaps of plastic refuse in the woods

on the drab periphery of Leeds

descend my mood from buoyancy to pain.

Rolling forwards now, the rape fields blaze

and blackthorns bloom with pearls,

resplendent in the boundary hedges

we...

Read and leave comments (4)

There was a man lived down my street

who felt unease about pollution.

Ashamed to see his car excrete

bad air, he found an odd solution.

Others who had thought thus far 

used bicycles, or electric cars

but my neighbour’s mate was the man who sold

the fuel his thirsty motor drank.

He was fearful this friend’s business might fold 

if he stopped putting petrol in the ta...

Read and leave comments (0)

So when we shoot past two degrees

and all the land is toast

and skies are black from the burning trees

what will you miss the most?

Me, I’ll miss the song of birds

that welcomed in the day:

those heart-rending, incoherent words

that had so much to say.

And when the heating of the ocean

flays the coral reefs,

will you temper your emotion?

Modulate your gri...

Read and leave comments (2)

The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind  -  Bob Dylan

What force can power the years ahead?

Now the age of oil is dead

we wait for industry to heed 

the whisper of the wasted wind,

the whisper of the wasted wind.

A pivotal crisis is upon us

and ready or not we shoulder the onus. 

We must make good or else be goners,

be dust dispersed by the wasted wind,

...

Read and leave comments (0)

What hope remains while politicians skirt

around the crisis, pledging they will shut

a few polluting plants but token cuts

in fossil fuel extraction fall so short?

Read and leave comments (3)

Back when I was young I didn’t fear:

I knew the world could solve this situation.

We understood the cause, so the way out was clear:

a comprehensive pact between all nations 

to stop emitting CO2 

into the atmosphere.

Back then there seemed no need to march and shout,

to sit down in the road and press for truth.

We could not conceive of a climate up the spout.

In th...

Read and leave comments (1)

Every gob of oil we suck today,

every turd of coal we flame resplendent,

every age-old species we erase 

is assault against our own descendants.

I stoop before the few that reach tomorrow:

striving to live, I understand how they

must curse us, dodging lethal hails of arrows   

we senselessly let fly today.

Read and leave comments (5)

I used to range unchallenged on this hill

keeping mankind under my surveillance.

I watched as you discovered

the wonder of the wheel

and ways to traffic goods along the rivers.

You harnessed blameless power from water mills

but we became estranged.

My name is Silence.

Once I was your day-to-day companion:

the backing to your birdsong at the daybreak

and as t...

Read and leave comments (2)

Every single day I get a torrent in my inbox:

online communities that crave my support

with a signature, a letter, a donation to unlock

a Saudi prison cell; save turtles; alert

a smug politician to the suffering of the needy;

grant safe asylum to desperate refugees;

liberate wealth from the clutches of the greedy;

or restrict global warming to one point five degrees.

I wann...

Read and leave comments (5)

Last night was more than anyone could bear.
Last night they plunged a dagger into Yorkshire,
approving plans to poison land, to fracture 
the ground beneath our feet, to choke the air.

Four thousand people sent in their objections.
A hundred speakers warned what could occur.
But seven County Councillors didn't care
and kicked North Yorkshire in the wrong direction:

a course that leads ...

Read and leave comments (3)

From the North Sea, wild and grey
the horde bore down on Scarborough Bay.
I overheard one of them say 
"We're following the money."

Like a Viking raiding force
they'd moved their enterprise onshore
to probe beneath the Yorkshire moors
for oil and gas and money.

A mighty fleet of high power cars
overran the Scarborough Spa.
I heard them, wassailing at the bar
thirsty for the money.

Read and leave comments (7)

Stuff yourselves you rakish apes, carousing, 
smashed on greenhouse gases, with your gross 
physiques ensconced on barstools turned from trees 
that we’d depended on for shade and browsing. 

You looked on us as merchandise. A horn. 
Mindless hulks. You gunned us down, despising 
I rhinos for existing whilst espousing 
reverence for the fabled unicorn. 

Mince us up! We’d make your quart...

Read and leave comments (1)

There’s gift-stalls galore outside the wild and hilly

Monteverde Forest. I buy a saffron

amphibian, sculpted in glass, from the guy that crafts them.

“What species is it?” I ask. His smile goes chilly.

“Is Golden Toad. He no more around.”

He knew them as a boy and recounts the thrilling

jackpot glitter of frogs in the fern-leaf frilly

puddles of April that made their spawning ...

Read and leave comments (4)

FINAL DAYS!  TOTAL CLEARANCE!!

The END OF HISTORY SALE is Now On!!!

Buy this planet!  *slightly damaged

When it’s gone it’s gone.

It’s a massive,  one-off sale sensation.

Conservation?  Don’t be conned!

We’ve got the whole world for exploitation!

When it’s gone it’s gone.

Buy this beautiful hardwood foot-rest!

Timber sourced from the Amazon:

the world’s grea...

Read and leave comments (1)

I’m looking for a holiday. 
I’m surfing on the internet. 
I want a little getaway, 
a place I haven’t been yet. 
I hit on this site 
-‘s got lovely colour photos, 
the prices are all right, 
there’s lotsa countries you can go. 
It’s called: Culturerelaxationandadventurepackageworld.com. Culturerelaxationandadventurepackageworld.com 
That’s C-R-A-P-World dot com. 
C-R-A-P 
CRAP WORLD! CR...

Read and leave comments (9)

Chipper people,  old and young,
making the most of the evening sun,
sucking death into their lungs
beneath a high street awning:

Formerly sociable,  carousers and clubbers
but outcast now,  they croon one another
with raucous gurgles of bronchial slobber
and carcinomas forming.

A message made to catch the eye
is emblazoned on the packet’s side:
“Cigarettes gonna make you die!”
but t...

Read and leave comments (1)

North Yorkshire was a green and pleasant county 
with rolling hills and cricket on the green, 
and tourists by the score 
would come to see the moors, 
historic sites and charming rural scenes. 
And when they'd had their fill of nature's bounty 
they'd spend their cash at tearooms and hotels. 
But then some gas was found 
two miles beneath the ground; 
now Yorkshire has become a 

Frack...

Read and leave comments (2)

Speak The Unspeakable

Hi, I'm called Tim. 

I’m writing this today

to make you all uncomfortable,

to rock your peace of mind.

I'm here to shock you,

here to mock your carbon hungry ways.

Expect no civil platitudes,

no reassuring lies.

I'm here to whack your attitudes,

dynamite your lassitude.

At times I'll be a little rude

- it's all for your own good!

Read and leave comments (3)

Claim yourself to be a fount of knowledge.
Claim that every scientist's a liar.
If you've done a course at any college 
you can be a certified denier.

Gather up those inconvenient facts
and twist them like they're bendy bits of wire.
Disseminating data needs great tact
but any fool can thrive as a denier.

Lobby for a mega corporation 
to push emission targets ever higher.
Easy work, ...

Read and leave comments (10)

At one degree the western plains 
of the US will be starved of rain,
Bankrupted farmers will pack up and flee
as desert restakes its claim.
There'll be no ice cap on the Arctic,
we'll lose the rivers of Kilimanjaro,
and frost that keeps the Alps secure 
won't do it any more.
The Barrier Reef will bleach and die,
mountain animals will reach the sky
chasing the cool, and those that can't f...

Read and leave comments (1)