Where Have All the Wild Things Gone?

Here in UK we’re celebrating the arrival of summer at long last. Several days of hot sunshine and dry

weather, for most of the country. It’s a welcome change from a cold winter and a cool, wet spring.

Yesterday, my wife and I went for a walk along a route we haven’t travelled since last autumn. It’s a 4 mile stroll through fields around the small market town where we live. The lanes and paths are rural, winding through farmland for the most part but beginning in the small village of Little Driffield and ending back in Great Driffield. We generally stop to watch and listen to the many song birds and we usually, especially in summer, have to spend a little energy in wafting away the myriad flying insects that rise from the grass, crops and hedgerows.

This time, the walk was different. It was hot and dry under a cloudless sky. The birds were quiet. There was no background hum and buzz of busy insects. Even the crickets were silent. Disturbingly, we heard only 2 songbirds along the entire walk and saw only a small flock of Swallows on the wing. The hedgerows were devoid of ladybirds, the grass hid no crawling or flying insects, the cow parsley was pristine, it’s creamy flowers entirely undisturbed by the usual crop of cardinal beetles. We saw 3 small butterflies in a place we would normally lose count. The clover, usual haunt of honeybees, was silent. No flies, small or large, buzzed us. In short, the landscape, lush with green vegetation, poppies, wheat, barley, oil seed rape and wildflowers, seemed bereft of animal life.

I’m no biologist, not even a naturalist, but I know enough to understand that a lack of insect life must eventually have a detrimental effect on life further up the food chain. Without beetles and grubs, the voles, shrews and other small mammals will fail to breed. The birds will not mate without the promise of food to feed their fledglings. Not least amongst the concerns at this absence of insects is the simple fact that most of the food crops grown for human consumption are fertilised by insects. No insects: no food.

So, where have they gone? What has happened to cause this unnatural silence and absence of wildlife? The simple answer is, probably, ‘climate change’. The pattern of weather this year has been chaotic. We’ve had records in almost every month. Coldest, wettest, cloudiest, driest and, I suspect, come the end of July, hottest. Such contrasts within so short a time are all but unheard of. Of course, there have always been variations in the weather patterns; the climate of this small group of islands is noted for its changeable nature. And we all understand that, in the long history of the world, the climate has alternated between tropical and frozen. But these changes have taken place over millennia, sometimes over millions of years. What has changed is the time scale.

Like most of my generation, I recall long, hot summers following mild, wet springs and fading into cool, damp autumns to end in cold, wet winters. Real seasons. I accept the evidence may be anecdotal, but somehow, the world ‘feels’ like a different place now. Rapid change isn’t happening only here in Britain. The world over, countries are suffering huge variations in their weather patterns. Drought, storm, flooding, snowfall, natural wildfires, hurricane and typhoon are all happening with greater frequency and intensity all over the planet.

In the 1980s, I joined Greenpeace, when that organisation arrived on these shores. At that time, in spite of other concerns, the scientists involved with the ecological movement were already predicting that what was then called ‘global warming’ would cause great variations in weather for the globe. They predicted that the dry places would become drier, the wet, wetter, etc. ‘Global warming’ in spite of the accuracy of the term (since global temperatures are on the rise) has been replaced with the less dramatic ‘climate change’ label. But, whatever we want to call the process of change, it cannot be denied that change is happening.

I suspect that my local walk has highlighted a result of climate change. I don’t know if this is the case, but I can think of no other likely cause. There are those, of course, mostly with vested interests or employing the ostrich philosophy, who decry all talk of climate change. This in the face of the fact that most governments and the vast majority of climate scientists are now convinced the planet is undergoing serious changes to the climate. The most urgent question we must answer is, ‘What is causing this disruption?’ If, as most of us who care think, it is human activity that’s responsible for the dramatic rate of change, then we need to take action to curb our destructive tendencies. It will mean changing the way we live, what we eat, how we dress, where we buy our products, how we utilise energy and resources.

We’re rapidly reaching a point where a failure to act will cause the changes to form their own momentum. There’s a strong possibility that we’ll reach a tipping point that, once exceeded, will be impossible to reverse. Under those circumstances we have no real knowledge of the consequences. We only know that they’re likely to be distinctly uncomfortable, possibly dangerous and most likely will lead to war as resources fail within individual countries. All such change is more likely to happen after I have gone, of course. It’s for my daughter and her children, as yet unborn, that I fear for the future. If you have children, perhaps you’ll give some thought to this issue and, if you don’t already do your share to avoid the coming catastrophe, maybe you’ll take the trouble to become informed and take action now, before it really is too late?

The Green Thing

Image via Wikipedia

I received the following as an email from a friend and, instead of gumming up the works by sending it to all my friends by email, I thought I'd spread it via the blog.


Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.

Remember: Don't make old People mad!

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off.


I find my sympathies lie with both camps. As a Greenpeace supporter since the 1970s, I've long had a 'green' awareness. And, as a child of the post war years, I used to attend the local cinema 'free' simply for the price of 9 jam jars to be recycled. So I understand all of the above. The young, on the other hand, are not responsible for developing all the labour-saving devices that have evolved from our love affair with consumerism and technology. These have all come along at the hands of our generation or that of our children. The continued exploitation of the Earth's resources continues with the current generation who merely follow the example we have set. So, whilst it might be true that we did many things to re-use items and resources in our younger days, it is equally true that we did nothing to prevent the decline of such recycling and we did a great deal to ensure the success of the modern throw-away economy.
Lets's not blame one another for the state of the modern world. Instead, let's actually do something about it, by ensuring we avoid the worst excesses of consumerism and embrace the best practices of the ecologically sound.

Stuart's Daily Word Spot: Purposely or purposefully?

Purposely or purposefully?

Image via WikipediaPurposely: adverb - on purpose or by design; done with intention, deliberately.

Purposefully: adverb - having a purpose or meaning; designed or intentional; with a definite purpose in mind; resolute.

What you do 'purposely', you do deliberately.

What you do 'purposefully', you do resolutely and with some purpose in mind.

So:

'Jason placed the bar of wet soap purposely to see Jane step on it, slip and land in the bath full of cold water.'

'Jane purposefully surveyed the floor before entering the bathroom, knowing Jason was likely to try to play some dirty trick on her.'

15 September 1971 Greenpeace was founded. I joined them later in the same decade, about 1976, if I remember rightly.

Stuart’s Daily Word Spot: Environment.

Image via Wikipedia

As today is Earth Day, which, each year, marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970 in the USA, I have chosen ‘environment’ as my word of the day.

Earth Day commemorates the day Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, proposed the first USA nationwide environmental protest. His intention was to shake up the political establishment and force the issue onto the national agenda. At that time, Americans guzzled leaded gas in huge V8 sedans. Industry poured smoke and sludge into the environment with almost no fear of legal consequences or bad press. People accepted air pollution as consequence of prosperity. The word, ‘environment’ was heard more often in spelling bees than on the news. Earth Day 1970 changed all that when 20 million Americans took to the streets and demonstrated for a healthy, sustainable environment.
Today, Earth Day continues to inspire change on a global scale. In 2010, more than a billion people around the world took action for the 40th anniversary. Will you take part today? Will you do your ‘bit’ to protect the environment, or will old habits, scepticism fuelled by ill-informed nay-sayers, or idle self-interest allow you to continue your daily destruction of the planet on the basis that you won’t be around when the shit hits the fan? (Though that might happen a lot sooner than you dare contemplate).

If, on the other hand, you’d like to learn more, visit http://www.earthday.org/ and continue the fight for a comprehensive climate solution, clean renewable energy sources, and the expansion of the environmental movement.

What Does it Mean to Be Green?

Image via Wikipedia

For some, the Green movement is a political choice, for others, it’s a spiritual matter and yet others see it as a social issue, especially relevant to the future lives of their children. Many people see it as all three, of course. And yet others think it is all so much hype and hysteria – though who, exactly, would gain from such a programme of disinformation about the environment is difficult to pin down.

As a parent, I want to leave behind a world fit for my daughter, and any children she may have, to inhabit. I would prefer to leave the place better than I found it. So, I belong to Greenpeace, and have done since the 1980s. My wife belongs to Friends of the Earth. We pool their information and do what we can to support both organisations.

Are all the warnings about climate change (or global warming, if that’s your preferred term) justified? The climate is a hugely complex system and local weather, on its own, is no clue to what is happening on a global scale. It is the accumulation of changes, extremes and effects that point to serious movement in the way our climate works. Almost without exception, the statistics indicate that the Earth’s atmosphere is altering to the detriment of humankind. I have no fear for the planet itself or life in general: they will continue for untold eons, with or without us. But there are signs that our input to the climate is generally destructive in the way it affects humans as a species. Already, some crops are failing, the water table in many areas - India’s Punjab and Israel’s disputed territory are obvious examples – is dropping to a point where it will soon be unusable. We are experiencing many examples of extreme weather in the form of floods, droughts, hurricanes, ice storms, forest fires etc. Some people believe that because their own local weather is improving, there is no problem. But local weather patterns on their own are no indicators of the general health of the climate over the planet.

Way back in the early 80s, Greenpeace predicted that we would see extremes in the weather all over the world due to global warming. And what do we have today? Extremes in local weather all over the globe. Isn’t that a surprise?

If we accept that mankind is the prime mover in this change (and the naysayers will blame the Sun – a long discredited theory; or cyclical changes – also not a valid defence, as the rate of change we are experiencing is unprecedented) then we need to know whether there is anything we can do about it as individuals. We cannot trust governments to take the necessary steps, unless we are prepared to back their unpalatable changes with action.

Recycling comes a poor second to making things last longer and repairing stuff that needs replacing. We consume as though the planet’s resources were inexhaustible but there are already signs that we will run out of some our basic needs in the near future. It is not unlikely that the next round of wars and conflicts will arise over claims to drinking water. Then will come disputes over food production, as the world’s population exceeds the planet’s ability to support it. Millions are starving today; if they were fed to the level of the most highly consuming societies, there simply wouldn’t be enough food to go round. So, we would struggle to feed a world with its current 6.5 Bn; what will we do with a population of 9 Bn, due around 2050?

Is it feasible to slow down population growth, surely a prime cause of our problems, or better, to reduce it?

Can we persuade people to reduce car use? Will increased nuclear power help reduce the effects of growing fuel use? Will commercial and political interests allow the introduction of factors other than purely material one to be included in pricing, so that the real costs to the planet can be reflected in what we use and buy?

I put these statements and questions to attract comment and debate and invite you to make your contribution here and now.