Open Letter to Sir Bob Geldof

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by

Steve Andrews

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Dear Bob,

I am writing this open letter in the hope you will see it in Whitstable Views. I tried contacting you via your agent but that didn’t work. I know you know who I am because 11 years ago you were the only judge on the YouBloom music contest who had anything good to say about my song “Mañana.” You suggested it needed a John Otway-style remake. You were probably right and I thank you for your support. But that was then and this is now, and I want to tell you about another song and an idea to go with it that I am hoping you will be interested in, and will be able to use your high profile position to help make it a reality.

The song is “Where Does All The Plastic Go?” and the idea is for a marine conservation concert to raise awareness about all the threats to the oceans. It would be like Live Aid but this time I am thinking of “Ocean Aid”. I know you have spoken out in support of local residents and their campaign against the sewage that is contaminating rivers and coastal waters in the Whitstable area. I know you supported the non-payment campaign against Southern Water, and that is why I am hoping you can help me with my idea.

We all hear activists like Greta Thunberg saying we need to take action now. One way I thought I could do so was in my songs and performances. I have been singing my song about plastic pollution and another entitled “Time For Ocean Aid” and even written a book with the title Earth Spirit: Saving Mother Ocean. It is published by Moon Books and has some high profile endorsements from people like Captain Paul Watson, who founded Sea Shepherd, and Lilly Platt, Global Youth Ambassador and friend of Greta Thunberg’s.

I have had media coverage in many countries, in Wales, in Ireland, in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Egypt, America and Australia. I actually ended up joining Rotary after the Rotary Club of Wyndham Harbour featured me, my song and ideas, in their The Wave magazine. The Portugal News gave me a whole page talking about my song and book. While back in Wales, SWND magazine gave me two pages to promote my ideas for marine conservation. Italian radio host and author Filippo Solibello devoted a whole 4-page chapter of SPAM: Stop Plastica A Mare to the subject and called his chapter “Where Does All The Plastic Go?” too. I keep telling everyone that saving the oceans is an international problem. We need as many people as possible on board (pun intended) from all around the world.

All of this media attention has been wonderful but it has not been enough for me to achieve my aim of inspiring a massive concert to take place somewhere. I guess I am simply not high profile enough to get in the mainstream news with this or to get my messages through to people at the top. Sadly, tragically, the fate of marine life and the oceans concerns everyone, both rich and poor. As Captain Paul says, and I quote him in my book: “If the ocean dies, we die.” Saving the ocean should be a top priority.

Speaking of Captain Paul, he has had many top rock stars supporting him. I know that Sir Mick Jagger, Coldplay, and Steven Tyler all supported Sea Shepherd as it was, and that Bryan Adams is an ambassador for the new Captain Paul Watson Foundation, as it is now.

Former rock star Feargal Sharkey spends much of his time these days using his position and social media to be speaking out about the pollution of British rivers and chalk streams with sewage, and by extension the sea where this disgusting muck ends up. In my book I have a chapter entitled “Down The River And Into The Sea.”

The sewage, plastic and other pollution is terrible enough but there are many other serious dangers to marine life and the health of the seas. Nuclear waste and dumping is one of the other forms of pollution. Cian Ciaran of the Super Furry Animals spoke out with Welsh politician Neil McEvoy about the plutonium particles ending up in the Bristol Channel only a mile from Cardiff, brought there in the “Nuclear mud” being dredged from near to Hinkley Power Station and then dumped in the sea. Campaigners against this contamination of coastal waters called Cardiff Bay “Geiger Bay” to draw attention to this madness. Ciaran and McEvoy both get a mention in Saving Mother Ocean.

Seaspiracy

Another very serious threat to the oceans is overfishing with super-trawlers. This has been brought to the world’s attention in the documentary film Seaspiracy. I am sure pollution from sewage cannot be helping the situation. Whatever marine life have survived are condemned to feed, swim and live in sewage-polluted waters.

Yet another danger to the health of the oceans, and by extension life inland too, is deep-seabed mining. Areas of the bottom of the sea are being drilled into and devastated in a similar way to how mining inland destroys wildlife habitats, pollutes and contaminates wherever it is done.

Climate Change is creating devastation worldwide with flooding, wildfires, droughts, hurricanes and other extreme weather, and the oceans are also in danger from this ongoing very serious international problem. Seas are becoming too warm, too acidic, and also diluted with too much freshwater in some parts. Sea levels are rising due to the polar and glacial melting ice. Sea level rise is already causing problems in the UK. Fairbourne on the coast of Barmouth Bay in Wales has been estimated to have reached the point of no return by 2042 and residents are being advised to move. Gwynedd Council have said they will not be able to afford coastal defences to prevent flooding there.

These examples outlined above are just some of the many threats to the health of the oceans and the marine life in them, and by extension to us too. I am sincerely hoping you will get to see this, Bob, and can use your position to help get such a stadium-size concert as I have envisaged off the ground somewhere. I am sure it would get top media coverage and there would be no shortage of famous acts that would want to be part of it. It would be a concert to raise awareness about the dangers to the seas and all the creatures that live in them, and the dangers to all the people who have enjoyed bathing and paddling in the seawater, or perhaps surfing, fishing, or taking part in any other marine sport. We need clean seas to support LIFE!

I will leave the last word to Captain Paul Watson, who endorsed my book by saying:

“Steve Andrews understands that the key to defending and protecting life and diversity in the Ocean is to use what you are good at to find solutions to seemingly impossible problems. The strength of an ecosystem depends upon diversity and interdependence. Therefore a successful movement is defined by diversity and interdependence within it. By harnessing our passions to the virtues of courage and imagination we can find impossible solutions to seemingly impossible problems. Saving Mother Ocean is inspiring, informative and a call to action by all of us to save the Mother to all of us—the Ocean.”

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Steve Andrews

Also known as The Green Bard, Bard of Ely, and Green Beard, Steve is an iconic figure who has featured in books, on radio and television, and also in film. He is, in his own right, a musician, a writer, a lifelong environmental activist, a sometime television presenter, a poet, a Britain’s Got Talent feature act, and a champion fighting against climate change, the destruction of trees, and plastic pollution. His power animal is the butterfly, several species of which Steve rears and nurtures in his spare time. Steve is based in the UK and Portugal, but has fans all over the world. https://www.bardofely.org/

WEBSITES:

https://steveandrews.info/https://linktr.ee/steveandrews
https://www.instagram.com/bardofely/https://bardofely.bandcamp.com
https://www.reverbnation.com/bardofelyhttps://www.facebook.com/TheBardofEly/
https://twitter.com/bardofely

BOOKS: Herbs of the Northern Shaman, Herbs of the Sun, Moon and Planets, Herbs of the Southern Shaman, Earth Spirit: Saving Mother Ocean (all by Moon Books)

PUBLICATIONS: Big Issue Cymru, SWND, Kindred Spirit, MyHerbs, Permaculture, Welsh Coastal Life, Celtic Life International, Mediterranean Gardening and Outdoor Living, Bee Culture The Magazine of American Beekeeping, National Federation of Occupational Pensioners, Prediction, and Living Tenerife magazines, Tenerife News, Tenerife Weekly and the Tenerife Sun newspapers, as well as the Huffington Post, Whitstable Views, Tripedia and Ancient Origins websites.

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