The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2363 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Having dealt with the miscreants and dried my eyes and nose, I went to see how the party girls were doing. They were busy watching some make up tutorial on the net and then trying to emulate it. They were each wearing enough makeup to make a drag queen blush and yet all of them have clear complexions and don’t need foundations and powder. With Danni playing football, she has natural roses in her cheeks, so doesn’t really require blusher. They were all giggling themselves silly, and I was pleased I’d bought some extra makeup remover, cotton pads and tissues which was on the shelf in the bathroom Danni, Julie and Sammi share.

I took them some soft drinks and snacks for which they thanked me. Little things mean much to parents, especially mums and the fact that they acknowledged my gift to them, means they’ll be welcome again.

Of my tutorial students, most thank me for my time of which about half mean it, and it’s never difficult to tell the difference between genuine and polite autopilot. Usually it’s someone I’ve helped to understand something they didn’t seem to get before, often something quite basic but it frustrates or prevents progress. So when enlightenment is provided, and it shines into their area of darkness, you can almost hear the brain clicking into gear.

Much of what I teach these days is ecological systems. It’s not rocket science but they can be complex. Some of the most straightforward ones are population rises and falls such as short eared owls and voles. The voles are the main prey item so in a year of plenty of voles, extra owls might also be born up until the peak of the vole population, which then declines and the owls find life harder and their numbers fall as well, usually a little later.

Watching population numbers is one way of observing what is happening in environments. The numbers of seabirds from puffins to herring gulls dropped from overfishing of sand eels for fertiliser by deep trawlers which destroy the sea bed communities—they can take decades to recover—supplying factory ships. The effect is twofold, the fish themselves are depleted and the habitat damaged the first signs of which might well be the decrease in predators, puffins, guillemots and razorbills as well as fish which might feed on them too, then things like gannets become affected.

Usually, the causes are multifactorial including things like temperatures rising on land or sea, pollution, over exploitation by man, destruction of habitat or disease. Red squirrel populations in the UK have dropped continually since the introduction of the American grey squirrel because the greys are bigger and more aggressive, perhaps better adapted and resistant to squirrel pox which they carry. The reds aren’t and if they catch it, it’s invariably fatal—it eats their faces away and is horrible to see.

Ecologists watch for indicator species, and if these start increasing or decreasing something is happening which might be good or bad. Nature will always find its own equilibrium but we don’t always like the consequences. In a post nuclear war scenario, flies, cockroaches and grass will recover quickly, mankind won’t. A consequence of global warming will be increasing desertification of Africa and some parts of Asia—possibly it will eventually spread to the N. American prairies—the breadbasket of the world. Siberia could eventually replace it as temperatures climb and the permafrost melts. Low lying places will become inundated as the ice caps and glaciers melt, ironically water will become in short supply to large tracts of land especially those where rivers are formed from melt water—there won’t be any.

The human population will likely fight wars for territory and water supplies and doubtless famine and disease will take the weakest. The only polar bears will be in zoos and big cats like tigers or snow leopards will also disappear. The world will be a poorer place as we lose those species which are already struggling to survive against the two legged termites, and elephants and lions will be in very small numbers and rhinos will probably only exist in zoos—hunted to extinction by poachers for Chinese medicine or middle eastern men with erectile dysfunction or a desire for rhino horn dagger handles. It might be nice to see rhinos grinding up humans as aphrodisiacs, or bits of, or wearing knives decorated with human body parts. Can’t people see how stupid they are? Obviously not.

Once I got the younger ones to bed, I sat down with Si and shared a glass of wine, we chatted—something we don’t do enough of these days, no time. He reminded me to contact my P.A. again to recruit the two managers we’d need to run the environmental directorate. The object being that one would help to generate the savings to fund the other part—good in theory, we’ll have to see how it works.

At bedtime, mine that is, I checked the three teens—they’d settled down to watch a film and were then going to turn in. I told they’d better or it wouldn’t happen again. Our bedroom was close enough to hear any outlandish noise, but I suspected the older girls would stop too much noise as it would keep them awake—not a good idea with a big sister like Julie, who doesn’t take prisoners.

Simon asked how the harvest mouse film was progressing. It wasn’t very quickly—Alan had been ill or busy and I had plenty to do as well. Following our conversation, we’d discussed climate change and its effect upon the future he told me I should do a film on that as well.

“Why?”

“Some people might take notice and do something.”

“Governments won’t, they’ll shoot a few badgers or send food to Africa but the Chinese or Indians aren’t going to stop building power stations or having increasing populations of middle class people who all want a car, preferably a 4x4 gas guzzler. We won’t be able to prevent wars over water or save the polar bear—to put it crudely, it’s too late and we are fucked.”

“Talking of which...” he never gives up, does he?

“I saw an article about a talk by Steve Jones the geneticist who reckons atheists and rationalists will become scarcer as the believers have larger families,” he added trying to show me he did read more than the markets.

“Oh well, they’ll find out the hard way that the sky pixies won’t save them when climate change really starts to affect things.”

“That’s very cynical, Cathy—what about your own meetings with the goddess thingy who gives you the blue light?”

“I’m not sure what that’s all about, it could be that natural energies can produce enough of something for a form of consciousness to occur such as elementals and so forth.”

“And goddesses.”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Is that your main purpose—to save mankind from itself?”

“I thought Al Gore had that job pretty well sewn up, either that or Flash Gordon.”

“Flash Al, there’s a picture to conjure with,” he chuckled and stroked my chest...