Skeleton School by Madelaine Last

This new normal is not a plateau

This new normal is not the new normal bro

The simple fact is temperatures continue to rise

The simple fact is there are no alibis

Even when an individual climate change denies

Even when the fatalists are saying their good byes

Even though so many choose to walk on by

We can do our best and the naysayer defy

Because there are indicators that clearly show

There may still be time to protect our home

Despite the hothouse building in our greenhouse dome

2016 was the world’s hottest year

because El Niño added to the sear

Many politicians made this their bluff

On behalf of lobbyists saying it’s one off

Then 2017 was almost just as hot

The third warmest year and El Niño not

How is the first half of 2018 I hear you ask?

How much reflected heat was there in which we basked?

It was the fourth warmest on the global tab

Again, no El Niño to be factored in the lab

Accelerating temperatures throughout the Industrial Age

Say greenhouse gas emissions cause climate change

Measures have been gauged stats have been paged

So many ordinary people are supremely enraged

Four straight years of temperature highs

Unseasonal fires, landslides, quickening dries

Ice caps melting at an ever-increasing pace

Ocean currents stalling changing weather’s ancient face

Sea temp differentials flatten there are water level highs

Since 1993 7.7 centimetres of seawater rise

And we’re still not ready damn our eyes

There is not one government that does enough

Where conservatives dominate, we are really stuffed

When we need collective accomplishment on the world stage

All they manage is the underachievement needed to end our age

When 17 of our hottest years since records were begun

Have been experienced by the planet since 2001

Fish are relocating due to warming waters

Resource wars are driving people across borders

Animals are struggling where small changes matter

Wildfire behaviour sees normal patterns scatter

Hard dry ground where crops should have been

Leave starving masses suffering sight unseen

In Sweden and El Salvador wheat and corn harvests dip

Four continents of heatwaves rock the state of the ship

Intense and longer storms, Flo’s protracted flooding rains

Deeper waters and drier droughts put more people in their graves

Nuclear plant shutdowns because river cooling water is too warm

Does any government or corporate body set off an alarm?

No, because they say we’re in the same safe boat

Despite some countries suffering in ways others do not

In Delhi people lie on the ground when record heat stops work after noon

Where there’s no techno cooling to ease every hotter summer’s swoon

Elsewhere electricity supply crashes due to air con demand

Dozens of heat related deaths occurred last summer in Japan

Basic system failures threaten water supply and food

Yet, all some do is argue, wring hands and do no good

2017 saw a carbon dioxide max for 800,000 years

But from Paris the US withdraws citing fake news fears

And the rich haven’t paid to help poor countries cope

As they promised in the accord to give some glimmer of hope

Global warming now moves faster than any models say

Are there global changes can be made to keep the worst at bay?

Like science harnessing knowledge to produce drought resistant crops

Or international government that can call on climate cops

Enforcing global policy solutions, a climate government pronounces

Or predicting global heat and rainfall for informed responses

We’re not talking about the risk to our grandchildren anymore

It’s the risk to today’s planet knocking at our door

Unless we lift ourselves from our decision-making funk

We’ll reduce the value of our world to the corporate status “junk”

Meanwhile, some people and Governments are acting somewhere out there

Funding research and renewables, reducing waste, doing their share

Protesters are demonstrating and actioning their care

Planting, recycling, whiting roofs, championing what is fair

But they can’t take on the weight of the world it’s just too much to bear

Will you help them, will you and you take on the dare?