Author of stories for children, Scientist and Philosopher organic cotton products, comments on life, the universe and everything, photography. Conservationist, Environmentalist. Lives on the pale blue dot. Humanity must tread more lightly on the world
First posted in June 2018. Things have only got worse in terms of plastic pollution and we now know that the nano and micro plastic particles are in our bodies, our lungs, our blood, even the placentas of women giving birth and possibly therefore in babies. Polluted before they were even born. These small pieces of plastic can carry toxins and pathogens as passengers so our future health due to ingesting them is unknown. The image is of pollution in a lake that will break down be consumed by fish and the fish will be eaten and there you have the chain.
This article was published in April 2018 but I have only just read it and it makes scary reading. In just over 200 years of industrial revolution our “progress” has left the planet looking like a wasteland. Time to change.
Extract from my book, Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship
Another scene from my story Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship. In this story a clever dad builds his son Tristan a pirate ship. Tristan sails away and is carried towards the island of Polysneezia where he must stop some real pirates digging the island up looking for treasure. The book is available from Amazon as an ebook and as a printed paperback. It contains illustrations like this throughout the text. In the printed book they are repeated at the back so that younger children can colour them in.
Tristan sat back and let the warm Easterly wind blow his little ship along while he occasionally steered. There was nothing on the horizon at all, he could see for many kilometres. The Easterly wind pushed his ship on and over the horizon to the horizon beyond that. A group of flying fish came past going in the other direction.
Tristan and the flying fishes
“Good morning,” said Tristan politely.
“Good morning,” they replied in unison. “Where are you going?” they asked as they circled Tristan’s ship, flying in and out of the water.
“To Polysneezia,” exclaimed an excited Tristan.
“We wouldn’t go there if we were you,” they all trilled together.
“Why ever not?” asked Tristan.
“There’s trouble on the island,” they replied.
“What sort of trouble?” he asked as the pretty fish danced in the water and in the air.
“Pirate trouble,” they said.
“Pirates!” said Tristan.
“Yes, nasty group, digging up the whole island looking for buried treasure. If they dig many more holes the island will probably sink.” Then they added, “Aren’t you a pirate?”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” said Tristan, “I will have to try and stop them. I am, but you see, I am a good pirate.”
“It’s best you leave them alone, young man.”
Our Etsy shop has blank greeting, birthday, invitation cards of the book’s cover artwork, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia. Larger quantities of cards available.
Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship blank greeting cards
This BBC article, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-55559943, about the rescue of a young orca whale is truly wonderful but we have to ask with there being so many stranding events if there is a human hand in them. The seas and oceans are full of plastic and other chemicals. Then there’s the huge amount of underwater noise pollution from all the trade, sometimes very unnecessary, going on. The seas and oceans are heating up and becoming more acidic. The food that these creatures feed on may be being over fished or move away from areas where the whales habitually feed. Prey species could be contaminated by microplastics and chemicals concentrating in their organs. It’s important that we understand what is happening to the ecosystems below the surface. Male orcas live for around 30 years although they can live for 50 to 60 years with females living up to 100. There are possibly only 50,000 of the creatures anyway, the equivalent of a small human settlement. Yet compare that to the extra 80,000,000 increase in the human population in the 366 days of 2020, the species that is causing all the problems and it is easy to see that we are too many and we take too much.
This is the brilliant cover art work for the third story in my Clever Dad series created by Gerry Newton. In this installment, as you can imagine, Tristan has an adventure in a submarine. This time however he is joined by his brother William. The story is an adventure as always and in this third book I cover a number of environmental issues for young readers. I’m aiming to publish the story in 2023.
In the meantime here are some details about the first book, Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship.
Tristan’s father builds him a pirate ship on the promise that he will be a good pirate. He sets sail and discovers that he needs to go to Polysneezia because some really bad pirates are digging the whole island up looking for money. Can he persuade them to leave before they cause the island to sink? Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship is Tristan’s first adventure.
The book is available from Amazon as a printed version or as an ebook. There are illustrations throughout the story and in the printed book they are repeated at the end so that they can be coloured in.
Clever Dad and the Space Rocket, the second story, is also available on Amazon.
Our Etsy shop has blank greeting, birthday, invitation cards of Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship’s book’s cover artwork, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia. Larger quantities of cards are available.
Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship blank greeting cards
Extract from my book, Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship
Another scene from my story Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship. In this story a clever dad builds his son Tristan a pirate ship. Tristan sails away and is carried towards the island of Polysneezia where he must stop some real pirates digging the island up looking for treasure. The book is available from Amazon as an ebook and as a printed paperback. It contains illustrations like this throughout the text. In the printed book they are repeated at the back so that younger children can colour them in.
Tristan sat back and let the warm Easterly wind blow his little ship along while he occasionally steered. There was nothing on the horizon at all, he could see for many kilometres. The Easterly wind pushed his ship on and over the horizon to the horizon beyond that. A group of flying fish came past going in the other direction.
Tristan and the flying fishes
“Good morning,” said Tristan politely.
“Good morning,” they replied in unison. “Where are you going?” they asked as they circled Tristan’s ship, flying in and out of the water.
“To Polysneezia,” exclaimed an excited Tristan.
“We wouldn’t go there if we were you,” they all trilled together.
“Why ever not?” asked Tristan.
“There’s trouble on the island,” they replied.
“What sort of trouble?” he asked as the pretty fish danced in the water and in the air.
“Pirate trouble,” they said.
“Pirates!” said Tristan.
“Yes, nasty group, digging up the whole island looking for buried treasure. If they dig many more holes the island will probably sink.” Then they added, “Aren’t you a pirate?”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” said Tristan, “I will have to try and stop them. I am, but you see, I am a good pirate.”
“It’s best you leave them alone, young man.”
Our Etsy shop has blank greeting, birthday, invitation cards of the book’s cover artwork, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia. Larger quantities of cards available.
Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship blank greeting cards
This is the brilliant cover art work for the third story in my Clever Dad series created by Gerry Newton. In this installment, as you can imagine, Tristan has an adventure in a submarine. This time however he is joined by his brother William. The story is an adventure as always and in this third book I cover a number of environmental issues for young readers. I’m aiming to publish the story later in 2022.
In the meantime here are some details about the first book, Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship.
Tristan’s father builds him a pirate ship on the promise that he will be a good pirate. He sets sail and discovers that he needs to go to Polysneezia because some really bad pirates are digging the whole island up looking for money. Can he persuade them to leave before they cause the island to sink? Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship is Tristan’s first adventure.
The book is available from Amazon as a printed version or as an ebook. There are illustrations throughout the story and in the printed book they are repeated at the end so that they can be coloured in.
Clever Dad and the Space Rocket, the second story, is also available on Amazon.
Our Etsy shop has blank greeting, birthday, invitation cards of Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship’s book’s cover artwork, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia. Larger quantities of cards are available.
Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship blank greeting cards
As part of our one year backpacking around the world between March the 15th 1999 and March the 15th 2000 we spent a month in New Zealand. Part of that time was spent driving round the beautiful south island and one day we stopped in the small town of Roxburgh with a great fish and chip shop. This is one of eight photographs that we made into a set of blank greeting cards. It was taken on an old Canon A1 35mm camera using slide film.
Extract from my book, Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship
Another scene from my story Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship. In this story a clever dad builds his son Tristan a pirate ship. Tristan sails away and is carried towards the island of Polysneezia where he must stop some real pirates digging the island up looking for treasure. The book is available from Amazon as an ebook and as a printed paperback. It contains illustrations like this throughout the text. In the printed book they are repeated at the back so that younger children can colour them in.
Tristan sat back and let the warm Easterly wind blow his little ship along while he occasionally steered. There was nothing on the horizon at all, he could see for many kilometres. The Easterly wind pushed his ship on and over the horizon to the horizon beyond that. A group of flying fish came past going in the other direction.
Tristan and the flying fishes
“Good morning,” said Tristan politely.
“Good morning,” they replied in unison. “Where are you going?” they asked as they circled Tristan’s ship, flying in and out of the water.
“To Polysneezia,” exclaimed an excited Tristan.
“We wouldn’t go there if we were you,” they all trilled together.
“Why ever not?” asked Tristan.
“There’s trouble on the island,” they replied.
“What sort of trouble?” he asked as the pretty fish danced in the water and in the air.
“Pirate trouble,” they said.
“Pirates!” said Tristan.
“Yes, nasty group, digging up the whole island looking for buried treasure. If they dig many more holes the island will probably sink.” Then they added, “Aren’t you a pirate?”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” said Tristan, “I will have to try and stop them. I am, but you see, I am a good pirate.”
“It’s best you leave them alone, young man.”
Our Etsy shop has blank greeting, birthday, invitation cards of the book’s cover artwork, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia. Larger quantities of cards available.
Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship blank greeting cards
This is the brilliant cover art work for the third story in my Clever Dad series created by Gerry Newton. In this installment, as you can imagine, Tristan has an adventure in a submarine. This time however he is joined by his brother William. The story is an adventure as always and in this third book I cover a number of environmental issues for young readers. I’m aiming to publish the story later in 2022.
In the meantime here are some details about the first book, Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship.
Tristan’s father builds him a pirate ship on the promise that he will be a good pirate. He sets sail and discovers that he needs to go to Polysneezia because some really bad pirates are digging the whole island up looking for money. Can he persuade them to leave before they cause the island to sink? Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship is Tristan’s first adventure.
The book is available from Amazon as a printed version or as an ebook. There are illustrations throughout the story and in the printed book they are repeated at the end so that they can be coloured in.
Clever Dad and the Space Rocket, the second story, is also available on Amazon.
Our Etsy shop has blank greeting, birthday, invitation cards of Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship’s book’s cover artwork, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia. Larger quantities of cards are available.
Clever Dad and the Pirate Ship blank greeting cards
Why would anyone think that? The ecosystems of the seas and the oceans have functioned normally for 100s of millions of years with the first complex life forms evolving some 560 million years ago and with the first fish appearing 530 million years before present, https://ocean.si.edu/through-time/ocean-through-time.
Then along comes a monkey, the human primate, a creature that evolved from the water who then, in very recent history, compared to life in the seas and oceans comes up with the idea for a boat. The concept is copied innumerable times as the monkey finds it likes to eat or use many of the life forms that live in the watery environment but without consideration to what this will do to those ecosystems.
Part of his expansion in numbers is very much down to this exploitation without consideration of this environment. After all, teach a man to fish and not only will he have many children who will also want to fish but he will go to extraordinary lengths to feed his pets and also, to force feed his herbivore farm animals some fish before he eats them.
Then some of those who were fishermen become managers and management consultants who came up with the idea that what is needed is a bigger boat, a factory boat and a huge processing plant to distribute what appears to be seas and oceans that have no bounds. Queue repeating this plunder of the watery environment without consideration as to the consequences.
Meanwhile below the surface where most of the monkeys cannot see or are not looking the ecosystems are trying to adapt to this day in day out onslaught as ecosystems do. On the surface the monkey is now squabbling over who, where and when the fishermen monkeys can fish and all the while the fishermen monkeys have more fishermen children. Think about what we are doing in a non human centric point of view and you will see that it is not going to end well.
Paul Noël 