Johnny met Ted at the local pub down the road
Where they’d talk of the issues and news of the day
After a few beers they’d chat with Des (and his hat)
Who’d tell them; “Don’t worry, it’ll all go away.”
Johnny was worried he’d lose his house quite at random
With rising sea levels and his house by the ocean
“Don’t talk such crap,” said Ted and Des (and his hat)
“All you’re doing is causing commotion.”
“Everyone needs something to believe in ya know,”
Said Johnny to Des, at the bar having a beer
“Mate, they just want their face to be seen, fifteen minutes on screen
They play on everyone’s fear.”
“But this summer, Des, it’s been so bloody hot,
I know it’s climate change, global warming that’s caused it.
It’s gotta be true, everyone’s sayin’ so too,
And I believe ‘em, for no-one abhors it.”
“It’s all sensational fury from Greenies like John & Deb Bury
They say every day will be forty degrees
They tell reporters we won’t survive, heat will kill us, we’ll die
And don’t forget about those rising seas.”
“I shoulda bought up the cliff,” poor Johnny retorted
“There was a warning in 1980.
Back then it was thwarted, thank God it aborted
But not before the drowning of old Tom Delaney.”
“There’s so much said,” Ted rejoined, “and not enough read
About where tax dollars are goin’, ya know what I mean?”
“Too right,” Des said from the bar, fillin’ up another beer jar
“Our money’s flowin’ down the river upstream.”
“Have ya read ‘bout that wind tree? They think it’s for free
In Paris it was out on display.
Guv’ment subsidies fund it, the pollies are for it
But it energises nothin’ and no-one today.”
“Just seems to me they say lots but do little
While spendin’ wads of taxpayers’ cash
Cash I could use to take my wife on a cruise,
Have a bit of the old splash and dash.”
Six months later Johnny met Ted and Des at the local again
To discuss news of the how and the why and the when
The sea levels were down, but Johnny came with a frown
Greenpeace had joined up his 18 year-old son, Ben.
“If ya not red at eighteen you’re not part of the scene
Ya can’t join the protesters when marching
But if ya Liberal by fifty you’re seen to be swifty
The obscenities can be quite disarming.”
That summer Johnny measured the tide, but it failed to rise
He’d worried for no reason at all
Then he got the call, to give some, give all
But declined with a smugness of sorts
It was time to retort what the Greenies had thought
Next election he’d watch their vote fall.
Twelve months later, temperatures, they had abated
Officially, or so we were told
But the lefties maintained the rage, no matter their age
Like the Revolutionaries of old
Forty-five years passed by, and with good reason why
Climate change was carried away in a coffin
The science proven wrong, a hoax, no longer attracting a throng
Like the boy who cried wolf once too often.
As warming the planet had faded (activists now feeling jaded)
Political correctness, it didn’t survive
It was finally over, as hard as finding that four-leaf clover
If only Johnny, Ted and Des were alive.
How happy they’d be, or so it would seem
To see lefties flowin’ down river upstream
They felt detested, the anti-argument festered
Uncared for, untidy, unclean.
As the story began, a new page (a new fan)
The old story could no longer offend
Though climate change had been swarming, without any warning
It was dead, buried, cremated! The end.
Postscript: Please read this as it’s intended, as satire.