Howdy Folks
I’d like to write a bit about how I came to be part of this crazy campaign organisation known as Greenpeace. I’d heard about them in the 1980s as my cousin was a member. A few years later, I was on holiday, staying in someone's flat and remember seeing an ecological poster that said, “Think Globally Act Locally”. This made sense to me. If enough people acted locally, then things would change globally. I’d also seen The Rainbow Warrior on the TV and been impressed as it ripped through the waves to stop whales being slaughtered. Anyone who gets in the way of a harpoon for their cause gains my respect and admiration.
I was at University and getting a bit fed up at the lack of student activism in inverse relation to the abundance of idiotic hedonism and apathy, so thought that signing up to Greenpeace might spur something along. It didn’t, but I got updates on what was happening with their campaigns and told a few people about what was happening if I thought they’d maybe listen. I attended a couple of meetings of Manchester Climate Change groups, but when I put my name on a list to help out with any actions, they never seemed to get back to me. Still, my £3 a month was going in, I never stopped giving a single month even though sometimes I had no money left at the end of it. I wanted some animals left if I was fortunate enough to ever had kids. I remember somebody on a nature documentary, I think one of the Last Chance To See programmes, saying, “Could we live with ourselves if tigers became extinct in our lifetime? How do you explain that one to your children?” That really left an impact on me. It could've been Tony Juniper, who also states in his Saving Planet Earth book, "Looking back to today from the near future, it is hard to see how our children will thank us all for allowing - let alone that we we consciously know about it - countless species to be committed to oblivion." Personally, I don't think we t even need to bring the emotive children guilt trip into the situation to be worried about what happens to the future of animals on the planet.
Now, as a tribute to one of our more downtrodden amphibious creatures, I have written a little missive: -
Ode To A Toad
Dearest Toad
I like you an awful load
I hope you don’t think it naughty or haughty
If I said you were very warty
Because beauty is not skin deep
It’s in the demeanour that you keep
Toads get a bad rap
If I heard someone diss you, I’d give them a slap
Let’s go for a romp
Down in the swamp
We can dine on fine cuisine
Like slug and fly surprise or roast snails spleen
If I kissed you, I wouldn’t want you to turn into a princess
You’re lovely as you are, oh toad, you are truly the best
So there we go. If we want to look after nature, we have to care for all of it, not just the fluffy, cuddly, cool-looking creatures, but the ugly, nasty, snappy varmints, warts and all. Another Greenpeace campaign along these lines is to protect the Ugly Fish. You can even adopt one for Christmas! What better gift to give than that of an Ugly Fish? Find out more here - http://www.greenpeacegiving.org.uk/product/protect-ugly-fish
Or even uglier, the poor little Blob Fish - http://www.greenpeacegiving.org.uk/product/blob-fish
Stay wild!
Tom Read, Norwich Greenpeace Group Member
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