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 about.

But politicians must pretend

That nothing need change in the end.

 

And us? We like to say we care,

But still demand our swollen share

Of space and luxuries consumed.

If we go on like this, we’re doomed.

 

The strongmen plan to reach their goal

By felling trees and burning coal.

This fragile membrane’s tinderbox

Reverberates with ticking clocks.

 

And us? Our thirst for wealth and stuff

Will decimate this world enough

To make sure nothing will remain.

And there’s no time to start again.

 

In nature’s misery and drought,

What was ‘in store’ is now about;

Faced with the force of our attack,

The atmosphere is hitting back.

 

And us?  We slap our footprint down

And roam all night around the town,

Hoovering up the last clean air

To trade with at the morning fair.

 

As long as opportunist suits

Crush progress with size fifteen boots,

The sole repositories of truth

Are howls of idealistic youth.

 

For summertimes of storm and flood

Are swathed in carnage and in blood;

This is no future far away,

It’s happening to us today.