Sci & Green Matter

There is a sea slug that’s been discovered,
that separates its body from its head.
The body, even the heart, discarded.
Rots away. Living goes on, with the head.

It takes about a month, apparently,
to produce a whole new body, with parts.
This new one, no doubt, a facsimile.
Improved function, I suspect it imparts.

It raises, I think, possibilities
about stem cell at the base of the brain,
and its productive capabilities.
Even restorative ones, to attain

to repair and replace. It’s sci-fi stuff.
Seems, though, in a big way, this sea slug does.

Latest automated killing machines,
robots, human-guided to their targets.
Or, programmed to identify, it seems,
and recognising, inflict direct hit.

No other human role before it fires.
For that, has robotic autonomy.
Would-be victims detail, all it requires.
Murdering, then, just a formality.

Summary justice and execution;
but blurs who should be deemed responsible
for killing not capture, in profusion;
mistakes, innocents dead, and horrible

use, to repress and quell opposition.
If not banned, who looks at the decisions?

A startling conception, human beings
as the dominant creature on the earth.
When dinosaurs ruled, take some believing.
Even amongst apes, doubtful be the first.

But survived, in clusters, near-disasters.
Used brains to adapt to circumstances.
Developed to become the new masters.
Being clever, they could take their chances.

Made the weapons to hunt, the fire to cook
and for warmth in sheltered enclosed spaces.
Animals to train, use, … or eat …, they took.
Began growing things in nearby places.

Despite being prone to theft and murder,
working together helped them go further.

Apparently, through nuclear fusion
can generate heat that’s equivalent
to what Sun does, in the moment it’s done,
although not to same permanent extent.

Nevertheless, that’s some temperature.
How it can be contained without burning
everything for miles around, am not sure.
For energy utility, learning.

But if control of the process is lost,
and fusion continue beyond limit,
what would that mean? What, to the earth the cost?
Meltdown, and unable to rescind it?

Think, as dead planet, just cold rock become.
But by this means, the earth’s death as a Sun?

Forever Chemicals, everywhere.
In food, in water, and in the blood stream
Many lives they foreshorten and impair.
Uncontrolled even though effect extreme.

Man-made, per-and polyfluoroalkyl
substances. Industrial surfactants.
Purpose, in liquids, able to reveal,
to reduce surface tension. An advance

business lobbies claimed; chemical ones said.
Hence, perfluorooctanoic acid;
perfluorooctanesulfonic acid,
like scotchgard stain repellent. Use massive.

Gen-X chemical compound, too. Emits,
and stays, these poisons. Forever toxic.

The despicable water companies
dump massive amounts of sewerage waste
in public rivers and around coast seas,
with little or no constraint. A disgrace.

One or two, after delayed court process,
may get a hefty fine as ‘punishment’.
But dividends pay, not seem any less.
And water charge upped, at users’ expense.

But no director gets disqualified,
or put in jail, for this filthy practice.
Money and emoluments not downsized.
Carry-on rich and ‘respected’, fact is.

Yet the pollution anthropogenic,
human-made. To rivers and seas send it.

It will not succeed. I don’t think it will.
Countries’ leaders are far too divided,
and within each, is not paramount still.
With short-term advantage, profit, sided.

It is discussed, and some agreement reached.
Insufficient, but considered as done.
Implementing; motivation then bleached.
A failure, the policy then become.

Just too staid, just too slow, the world’s leaders.
Theirs, a form of climate change denial.
Cover-up, with propaganda feed us.
Risk catastrophe that later befall.

Calmly present, but is maniacal
in the context of human survival.

Your children will get hot. Hot. Burning hot.
You won’t be there, for them to thank a lot.
Could have done much more, they’ll say, but did not.
And now they’re forced to sweat until they drop.

Your sons will drown in water; and then blood.
You will have given them life, and their death.
For their future, failed to show enough love.
Climate crisis will take-away their breath.

Your daughters will be swept away in storms.
Hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, the norm.
You were too lack-lustre as the world warmed.
Because of that her chances in life, shorn.

You thought could deny; that it wasn’t true.
But they will believe that, really, you knew.

Waste Management in Britain. What a mess.
Enforcement rare for illegal dumping.
Refuse on green land, a cause of distress.
Disposers’ licence-system checks nothing.

And the recycling is inadequate.
A great deal of it is in name only.
Much that could be, to landfill or burnt first.
Could use to heat homes, but know it won’t be.

And still don’t deal properly with plastics.
Pollution from that, massively increased.
As is sewage to waterways, unpoliced.
Radioactive water, too, released.

Sewers old, and filled with giant fatballs.
‘For profit’ and ‘Unaccountable’ rules.

The existential is elemental.
It’s about survival, plain and simple.
For destruction, there’s always potential.
Its traps, important not to fall into.

The case at an individual level.
Eating well, and exercising, and sleep.
Brain stimulus, to keep its wherewithal.
Happy, but not reckless so in too deep.

Not mad, like mankind on a global scale.
Denying, then far too little too late
to tackle climate change, so likely fail.
Massive weapons of war. Their use, our fate.

And, consequences of unbridled greed.
To mass existential crisis, all lead.