Oh! The horrid global warming
Life on earth is no more charming
All across, there’s climate change
Nature spewing forth, all its rage
Mother earth purveys, all our needs
Yet we fault it, with sordid deeds
Pristine resources, we put on line
To future we bequeath, none sanguine
Passion for non-renewables, a frontrunner
Concerns for future, on backburner
Resource overdraft is foolhardy
Putting the lives ahead, in jeopardy
Smothering trees, with senseless greed
Bothering hardly, for future need
Razing the forests, without rue
Can’t have the cake and, eat it too
Sky is the limit for corporate schemes
Earth can’t shore up, all those dreams
Technologies surged to a cutting edge
Yet, environmental issues we simply hedge
To overhaul ephemeral prosperity
We firewall the lifelines to posterity
Economy boom, nay, ecology doom
Future hustled into a quagmire of gloom
Materialistic world in a malefic race
Profaning resources, for an iconic place
Industrial metabolism, going astray
Planet’s physics, in flustered array
Greenhouse gases, knocking the skies
Planet’s fever, reaching new highs
Scars on earth are hard to hide
For, the laws of earth been set aside
Distant hills are hardly smooth
Climate change has unwrapped the truth
Grass on far side, no more green
Rising fever hath blown off the sheen
Land or ocean, mountain or air
Diversity of biota, all in despair
Affront on habitats, holding no bars
Forlorn earth been, molding as Mars
With rising fever, oceans sway
Crimson corals, blotching away
Melting snows been fleeting to shores
Polar bears onto, joining dinosaurs
Laid in stratosphere, the ozone layer
Stands aloft, as hallowed savior
Rived by noxious, emissions and sprays
Lets the sun emit, harmful rays
To judge the nature’s fury
We have, none to sit on jury
For, all of us stand in defense
Due utter lack of earthly sense
To mitigate issues, the earth been beset
Rev up actions, to restore its assets
Take no more than, what you can replenish
Conserve resources, for future to flourish
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Dr. Seshu is a former IRRI plant breeder (1976-93) and global coordinator, International Network fo Genetic Evaluation of Rice (INGER). He is now a consultant, International Agricultural Research, Rockville, Maryland, USA.
