Tony Jolley - ManKind

Though I accept that our planet’s fruits are finite and failing,
The rate of population growth rapidly rising,
And that somewhere along a line I’ll probably not live to see
This is doubtless going to force mankind
To do very much more with very much less than it would like it to be,
I reckon our problem’s got more to do with distribution
Than overall resource diminution:
It’s always those with next-to-nothing
Who end up with nothing next.

Whilst we are arguing how to ‘draw in our horns a bit’,
Cut back, cut down and ‘live within our means’,
‘They’…
[Meaning anyone that is not ‘we’, ie:
Anyone out of sight,
Out of mind and
Outside our ‘I’m Alright Jack’ island mentalities],
This ‘They’,
This growing majority,
Lack not only the means to live,
But the meanest of means to survive.

I don’t see this getting any better – do you?

With ‘Globalisation’ and ‘Global Warming’ on the world’s agenda,
Our ‘First World’ will be watching with one eye
Its money literally evaporate ‘into thin air’ -
[Going up, but for once, not ‘in smoke’]
In hope of slowing the rate CO2 makes it thicker;
Whilst the other will weep bitter tears at the sight of jobs hemorrhaging Eastwards
As our own industrialists move technology and investment
To sources of lower