We’re all for fighting climate change,

Until the choice gets tough;

Don't try to meddle with our cars,

Our holidays, our stuff.

What beats the smell of petrol fumes,

The whiff of kerosene,

The closet full of unworn clothes,

The cinema-sized screen?

We'll stand behind the barricades

To fight off this green crap,

And watch the lifestyle we deserve

Fall stra...

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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 ...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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,

...

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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?

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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...

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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.

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We know the climate is changing;

We know that the atmosphere roasts.

We know too soon many places

Will be fit for no one but ghosts.

Yet we demand our holidays

And haggle for more and more stuff;

With regard to our consumption,

Excesses are never enough.

We all profess to love nature

And take the environment’s slant,

But we are pursuing lifestyles

Wh...

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Climate Change and us

The planet turns, the planet turns;

The adults fiddle while Rome burns.

And children yet to be conceived

Have every right to feel aggrieved.

And us? We plunder wealth from mines

And join the back of frantic lines

In shirtsleeved January sales,

Pursued by ever-warming gales.

Exhausts and power stations spout

Unheeded warnings all ab...

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The blue sky yawned

And out they came

As the mortal hoard 

Looked for blame

It's us! It's them!

It's God's fair hand

His silence broken

To make a stand!

Some cowered. Some ran

Some stood in awe

As tears of seeds

Filled Earth's floor

For exactly 6 hours

The seeds were sown

For the 7th

Time stood alone

Leaves stopped in flutter

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in this empty stadium I'm being chased

pursued by something I struggle to see,

I smell a hunter's breath alien and rank

if there was one nearby I'd climb a tree

its dusk now and the circuits are endless

he surmounts hurdles with an easy glee

his dark vest sports no national colours

night falls, I need the floodlights to see

its been like this now for several years

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a cough as dead leaves drop

detached with soft faint sigh

last breath of lonely martyrs

murmur of breeze in the sky

gravity's heavier as we age

ancient oaks sad blue eyes

saplings thrust like a lance

a loving that knows no lies

do remember me, I'm here,

did you forget I found you?

like a lost fawn, dappled in

shadowed glades and dew

scoured every ...

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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...

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Like angels pinhead dancing,
we have truly lost our way,
to live the fat anointed life
for fossils, we will pay,
radiation will not go away,
as oceans flood the bay.

Thus, the Machiavellians
enjoy their little rants,
and the paid-off scientists
are bribed with oil grants,
pretending they cannot decide
if CO 2 will raise the tide,
boost the climate worldwide.

For political advantag...

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 APOCALYPTIC SKY

Yesterday

Had proven science fact

Much stranger than fiction:

Vivid orange night

Replaced

Bright turquoise morning.

Sunlight was postponed.

Normalcy took a holiday.

My neighbour's

Barnyard animals,

Five chickens, two goats,

Didn't know what was going on

With their immediate surroundings.

Neither did that lone bird in flight.

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Heatwaves radiating across the country,

common occurrences every summer

now occurring every season.

Summer stretches long into Fall,

makes a cameo during Winter

And begins earlier every Spring.

It’s a heatwave, they say.

No, it’s global warming.

No, it’s now called climate change, haven’t you heard?

No, that’s all fake news.

It’s only a heatwave, you see.

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As originally published with Clay Literary's Raven: https://www.clayliterary.com/post/design-a-stunning-blog

‘Neath the blistering heat, California poppies cast

themselves to the hillside sun as wayward children

start to lose their breath, as you now fight for yours,

running to chase the summer blues away.

The young and old all begin to fail; heatwaves

take the lun...

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Is it the job of a poet to comment on current affairs? Are we political? Are some issues facing us beyond the political? Just some of the issues facing poets in a world which is bufftted by crises and facing immense challenges. 

Simon Armitage laid down the gauntlet on the climate emergency, effectively saying that it imbued everything we see or do, and MVP responded by dedicating our 2020 anth...

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The Climate is changing, affecting the whole world,

affecting every living thing on the Earth,

with very many losers, most of whom will be

unrealised, unrecognised and uncounted.

Climate stats start with the number of people who

are impacted – nations displaced, islands gone, plains

flooded, livelihoods destroyed and peoples distraught

and we hear of folk’s plight weekly,...

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Autumn arrives at last, unseasonably late.

Frustrated at being forced to wait,

she makes her displeasure known

in a sudden, howling rainstorm that threatens more

than the dying leaves that are her due.

But she finds herself part-thwarted in her mission.

Others have shown their anger before:

the best plum tree felled by the surprise late snow of April;

the elderberries ...

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Earth as our landlord

A notice was given

Broken agreements

Eviction is imminent

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How sadly it's come to this:

the apotheosis

of our egos' mad desires.

Now all this nightmare requires

of us to finalise

matters is to analyse

our crude methodology

and, sans apology

give the Earth one last, good kick -

yes, that ought to do the trick -

then drink to its poor health.

We've raped it of all its wealth,

we've torn it and tortured...

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Epidemiologists and public health ethicists have been grappling for some time with the near certainly of widespread disease pandemics resulting from climate change. Changes in non-human animal migration and human migration will bring extant pathogens to new populations as warming releases long dormant pathogens on the world once again. Large swaths of the population could be wiped out in an incred...

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Before the reckoning,
The water was like glass.
We would glide
Across the surface,
Staring into the deep
As naïve as a recently
Birthed Godzilla,
Never knowing what
Destruction our
Mutation might bring.

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Building a civilization
is a lot like baking a loaf of bread:
All you need are the right ingredients,
a little know-how,
and an oven.

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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...

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https://youtu.be/r6O9OOiqHnw

Goodbye to the common land.

Goodbye to our pensions.

Goodbye to free school milk,

and goodbye to fair rent.

Goodbye to a job for life.

Don’t expect a contract.

Farewell to the greengrocer,

selling fruit in paper bags.

Farewell to the council house.

They’re selling off allotments.

The end of days for the bursary.

No more pow...

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Wake me up when the storm has passed
And the ravens have left the tower
Wake me up when the war machine
Has finally run out of power
Wake me up when the bigots
Have finally opened their eyes
And all of the presidents have given up telling lies
Wake me up when the tables have turned
And lessons have been learned

Wake me up when the big game hunters
Have finally paid for their crime
...

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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 ...

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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.

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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...

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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 ...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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!

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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, ...

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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...

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Is It Warm In Here?

Is it warm in here, or is it me?
I used to live inland
and couldn’t see the sea,
now the salty brine
is up above my knees.
Is it warm in here, or is it me?

Is it warm in here, or is it you?
Polar bears are sunbathing.
Penguins don’t know what to do
because all the ice has gone
along with the igloos.
is it warm in here, or is it you?

Is it warm in here, or is ...

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Hit

I got an email today from a coral
wanting to know why I don't have a car
I replied it is none of your business
blooming nosy crustacean

but corals aren't the type to let things lie
three phone calls, two texts
and registered delivered letter
later
I received a cheque from his mates
on the barrier reef
so I can buy an SUV

but I'm not that sort of bloke
I sponsored a rhino i...

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photo credit Rush Merchant III

Octopus Ink

It’s too delicate to express 

Without risking failure

Danger of going too far 

Pulses in my chest like fright 

Pathos of saying nothing

Doing nothing

Procrastinating indicates how little 

I know 

I push forward anyway

Damming a river

Like a core of engineers

This river has flooded before

And flooding

(I believe...

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