December 5, 2024

A Second Highland Clearance

All new cars and heating green,

Carbon neutral is the game.

Electricity will solve everything

We no longer need a flame.

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Devices in our homes

All needing extra power

Everything driven by an invisible presence,

Even our love for a fancy shower.

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Charging our phones,

Watching giant screens

Laptops sending emails,

Zooming places in our dreams.

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Wonderful technology

We no longer can do without.

What is happening on Facebook?

Switch on, and let's find out.

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Turning on the telly

Seeing the ice caps melt,

Watching flooded cities.

The worry of climate change felt.

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""Let's make a plan,""

Successive governments said.

""How to stop the ticking clock,

Midnight not far ahead.""

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What did our leaders plot?

What did they say should be done,

As they scheme, invest and make a personal profit,

In the name of the common man?

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Zero targets to meet.

Green corrupted blood,

Rushing through the nation's veins

As we sacrifice another wood.

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Land filled with concrete.

The lorries thud past our door.

Losing count of the journeys

Bringing more and more.

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Deer disappear.

Eagles no longer fly.

Salmon die in polluted water

As electricity fills the sky.

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Woods where our ancestors stood

Destroyed time after time.

Replaced by towers for wind

And blades with an eerie rhyme.

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Racing to victory,

Minsters lick the boots

Of rich foreign investors,

Their pals in expensive suits.

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Applications too slow?

We'll speed the process through.

Grease the wheels of Edinburgh and London

Just like we always do.

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As pylons and storage appear,

Political opponents keep quiet.

Their silence tells the truth,

Whilst we, the peasants, riot.

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""We need green electricity,

We need to save the planet!""

Two big cons of the century,

As we race to midnight, yet damn it.

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Not one politician mentions how

All the emerald volts will be made,

Or where the wind will blow,

Nor the sound or size of each blade.

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Let me tell you frankly,

Sutherland's people will be dead.

Forget bagging Munros.

Count the wind turbines instead.

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Don't be taken in,

That wind power is green.

There will be no future here.

The truth and lies are obscene.

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Call me a NIMBY.

Call me down in shame.

Sutherland will lie in ruins,

But not in my name.

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I'll fight with my last acid breath

For the land I now call home.

Greedy landowners cash in,

As the burns and rivers foam.

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The national disgrace

Of Sutherland's disappearance.

Nature destroyed for megabucks,

And a second Highland Clearance."

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RKJ Adams
Ardgay
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