50 Ways to F**k the Planet

3 Space invaders

The root of all problems

AGENDA

* Savage gardens

* Put down monstrous roots

* Rupture the infrastructure

The aliens landed some time ago. For a while they kept themselves to themselves and even seemed relatively well behaved. But, in truth, they were biding their time, waiting for the moment when world domination could begin. Naturally, being aliens, they would first have to morph into something terrible. And so they became a Triffid-type monstrosity, a rapacious superweed replete with superpowers. They became indestructible.

Knotted up

The Japanese knotweed, brought back to Victorian Britain from the Orient as an ornamental delight, is probably your favourite plant. A splendid-looking piéce de résistance with the armoury, faculties and, most of all, ambition to subvert Europe’s existing ecosystems. Knotweed is unstoppable. Labelled ‘unbelievably strong’ by the government’s admiring Environment Agency, it can burst through concrete pavements and tarmac and topple brick walls. Floorboards have been ruptured. Roads have been split. And now, the knotweed has set its sights on the rape of Europa. More dangerous, according to Britain’s leading scientists, than anything they have created with genetically modified organisms, knotweed is the second gravest threat to Europe’s plants (beaten only, and marginally, by reinforced concrete). She – the invaders hail from a single female ancestor – is a fabulous, wily specimen, capable of reproducing effortlessly on her own. And she is in a hurry, with each clone capable of growing a metre a week. Horticulturists, almost hysterical with shock, claim to have actually seen her grow.

Out in the wild, knotweed has no natural enemies. Only man stands in her way and, quite frankly, he just doesn’t cut it. Despite desperate and repeated efforts, nothing has been found to tame the knotweed. Trips to Japan to find a solution have yielded little. Hopes that voracious aphids and fungal rust may work crumbled long ago. Even supposedly impermeable mats laid on land have been, literally, punctured. The government is panicking. This problem plant costs nothing to spread but millions to defend against. Officials have spent more than £1.6 billion, 170 times the amount allocated to their biodiversity plan, but have got nowhere near the root of this knotty problem. Specialists can charge £40,000 to clear 5 square metres of the weed. Such is the concern that the government has recently started treating it on a par with nuclear waste. The removal of a solitary plant resembles a military operation. The Environment Agency, petrified of this ingenious nemesis, has produced a 37-page knotweed manual, which recommends digging away an area 7 metres around each plant and 3 metres deep: almost 600 cubic metres. The specimen should be removed and incarcerated 5 metres deep at a licensed landfill site. This is the only way to kill her for sure, but it has become so expensive and time-consuming that no one can be bothered. Call it natural selection, call it botanical genocide, call it what you will: the day of the Triffids is getting closer. You will hasten that day, helping this nefarious weed to overrun Europe, and sending indigenous species fleeing for cover.

Rooted in the land

Good day, Earthlings. Another Monday morning in 2017, the start of another working week under the occupation. The traffic bulletin offers a round-up of the usual pandemonium. Gridlock again on the M25 due to a weed burrowing beneath the fast lane. Near Doncaster a derailed train lies on its side after subsidence caused by a rampant plant. In the streets, commuters trudge to work in the shadow of towering stems that have pushed up through the pavement. Everywhere, the city’s streets are avenues of solid, swaying greenery. In this twilight world, cars flash past with headlamps on at midday. The news brings little respite. A school in Wales has been crushed by a falling wall, pushed over by an untamed tendril. Knotweed has burst into the House of Commons, this time directly through the speaker’s chair. The Queen is reportedly throwing a hissy fit because the Buckingham Palace herbaceous borders – the most heavily defended flowerbeds in the UK – have, again, been overrun.

Spreading the knotweed is child’s play, but the plant’s destructive tendencies ensure ultimate satisfaction. All you need do is ferry some cuttings about the continent and scatter them liberally whenever and wherever the mood takes you. Unarguably, this is one of the most straightforward means of defacing the planet. The challenge lies in blanketing an entire landmass in her shade, the creation of the first monocultural continent. This is the true meaning of going green.

Evidence indicates that Europe’s entire collection of indigenous fauna and wildlife could not survive a knotweed kingdom. When the plant wrested control of a Cornish valley in 2007, choking the landscape with a 7-mile bank of weed, naturalists recorded a mass exodus: dippers, grey wagtails, Daubenton bats, bluebells, and thrift all scarpered. Even the yellow flag surrendered without having time to change hue. Species have a choice; they either fight or flee. And the recent past shows that the former is futile.

Back to the roots

To get Europe knotted you will first need to locate the weed. This won’t be too problematic. Already she has spread from Land’s End to the northern tip of the Isle of Lewis, her striking good looks immediately noticeable; a touch of bamboo bristling with fluffy white flowers and orangey-yellow roots, quite fetching on every level. Only the Orkneys have escaped so far. Scour rubbish tips or derelict land; deserted places where you won’t be disturbed. If you are, merely pretend to be a good citizen cutting down the ubiquitous weed (cutting or mowing encourages its spread, but you will conveniently forget to mention that bit). Knotweed spreads using its rhizomes – its roots – and a fragment as light as 0.08 grams – fingertip size – is all that is required to grow another plant. With her labyrinthine roots encompassing an area the size and depth of a subterranean swimming pool there is no shortage of incendiary material.

Fill several dozen bin bags with rhizomes and place in the back of a truck with blacked-out windows. Inside the truck, start shredding the roots into pea-sized pieces, a tedious process offset by the knowledge that each tiny shred is sufficient to start a fresh colony in a location of your choosing. As you leave, be sure to drive over the dig site; scraps of knotweed stuck to tyres have, in the past, facilitated cross-country transfer with triumphant results.

Sow the seed

Now for the fun bit. The list of attack sites is innumerable. Some are fairly obvious but, really, it’s up to you. Go crazy. National Parks are particularly fair game as, clearly, is any site considered naturally exquisite. Thrill-seekers might want to share their cargo with the grounds of Balmoral or Buckingham Palace. Prince Charles’s organic estate at Highgrove exerts a certain pull, as does the prime minister’s country residence at Chequers. Catapults armed with pellets of knotweed rhizomes and weighed down with pebbles seem an obvious tactic for penetrating such hallowed grounds. Maybe consider a remote-controlled plane with remotely activated fuselage doors to release knotweed bombs. Target the gardens of folk like Alan Titchmarsh, whose penchant for televised botany more than justifies such actions. The world-famous Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. The Royal Horticultural Society’s showcase at Wisley. The list is endless. Scatter knotweed roots into the Thames to float downstream and impregnate the banks. They might even drift out to sea and contaminate some faraway land. Risk her remains on the playing fields of major sports stadia – Anfield, Aintree or central court at Wimbledon. London’s 2012 Olympic site would have been another indisputable target, but a welcome infestation has already swamped 10 acres of it, amid reassuring reports that it may even delay the games. Hire a hot-air balloon and float above the countryside with several kilos of chopped knotweed for company. Elevate to several hundred metres and release 37,000 snippets of rhizomes at five-minute intervals. Why not head abroad? Enough firearms and drugs are smuggled into Britain every year for you to be certain that a few sprigs of weed root will get through. Sniffer dogs aren’t trained to search out knotweed. Once on the mainland, you know what to do. Incidentally, the precise technique for dispersal is not really an issue. Either hurl into the air and let the weed herself decide where she lays her roots or place firmly into soil. Any soil will do; even the most wretched quality is sufficient for this hardy little sprig.

A word of warning: it is illegal to propagate or even transport knotweed. Although we don’t want to encourage law-breaking, sometimes the ultimate goal – that of completely f**king over the environment – must take precedence. Anyway, the sentence is soft in light of the potential rewards. On the slim chance that you get caught – and as yet no cases have come to light – you will face a maximum two-year sentence. With characteristically good behaviour, you’ll be out in a few months, just in time to witness the first shoots of your labour, before being caught hang-gliding with a sack of knotweed cuttings above the Blue Peter garden.

WHAT’S THE DAMAGE?

* Invasive species with predilection for eating knotweed is introduced by government, eradicating the weed within two years. Never.

* Japanese knotweed replaces rose and thistle as official emblems of England and Scotland. The EU adopts it as a symbol of unity. Unlikely.

* Council sued for manslaughter after child disappears down hole in playground caused by knotweed. Lawyers argue that officials displayed sufficient negligence by not heeding warnings. Knotweed control becomes pivotal issue during 2012 UK elections. Possible.

* Knotweed arrives on Orkney in summer of 2010. Arrival is traced back to climate-change charity walker relaxing after traipsing to John o’Groats on tedious walk to raise awareness. Credible.

* New superhybrid of Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed and the dreaded Russian vine is discovered. Tabloids dub it ‘Invasion of the Killer Knotweed II’. Bring it on.

Likelihood of knotweed colonizing most of Europe by 2020: 78%

4 Chemical reaction

Hormone treatment for all!

AGENDA

* Dole out the contraceptive pill

* Turn sealife female

* De-fertilize fish

* Trout off the menu

Maybe the world will not end with a bang after all, but with a whimper. Instead of Armageddon and its attendant boiling seas and titanic ructions, maybe we’ll just finish up trapped in a unisex world, wondering where the next generation will come from. Already, Mother Nature has started the ball rolling. The feminization of wildlife is well underway amid welcome warnings that this could dismantle an evolutionary process which has taken 3.5 billion years to perfect.

You must aid the process. The experiment will start with fish and your plan is to transform all male freshwater fish into females, a move that will prove to be a less than progressive step for the future of the fish population. Although tests on fish breeding patterns are relatively rare, consensus and common sense dictate that making any species all female will have a profound effect on reproductive patterns. The sexual emancipation of the human female has handed you the perfect weapon. Millions claim that the contraceptive pill is a blessing. Not many expected it to prompt an environmental crisis.

The bitterest pill

Just above the West Yorkshire town of Castleford, close to the banks of the slow-moving River Aire, protrudes a pipe. Passers-by spare barely a second glance for yet another sewage outfall. They should take more notice. Or at least the blokes should. They are witnessing the cusp of the new sexual revolution. Within these brackish waters something odd is happening to fishing tackle, and we’re not talking rods and floats. The Aire’s male fish are turning into women, with tests indicating that 100 per cent of male fish show evidence of feminization.

The nondescript pipe above Castleford is dispensing, quite literally, the waste of humanity. In West Yorkshire, like in most places, quite a few women take precautions, and so their urine contains the female hormone oestrogen. It seems the fish here have been force-fed the female contraceptive pill. Over time, the males have begun to grow female reproductive tissues and organs. Parts of the testes turn into ovary tissue or, if they are really unlucky, development of the fish’s manhood is merely retarded. In lowland parts of the river, the government’s Environment Agency noticed up to half of the male fish developing eggs. Tests around the world reveal that even the tiniest traces of synthetic female hormone are sufficient to corrupt wild fish populations. Some scientists even suggest that the concentrations sufficient to make fish unisex are below detection limits in place for drinking water.

Your task is to give aquatic males the world over a helping hand in their quest to become women, albeit against their wishes. For this you will require supplies of the synthetic oestrogens widely used in the Pill. The obvious choice is etinyloestradiol, one of the most common components of the contraceptive and up to a hundred times more powerful than any naturally occurring oestrogen. Its potency is enormously reassuring. Medical advice for male-to-female transsexuals dictates that the stuff offers not only a long ‘half-life and high potency’ but, more importantly, gives ‘excellent feminizing effects’. Traces of the Pill have been found in waterways at dosages of one part per billion. If you can only double that, you will be assured of success in your aquatic sexualization experiment. Etinyloestradiol is made in industrial quantities and at face value costs less than 8 pence for a month’s supply. Several large UK companies manufacture etinyloestradiol in their laboratories. Around £10,000 should buy you enough to emulate the effects of 43,000 women taking the Pill, but for one day only. More than 3.5 million women take it every day in the UK, with 100 million worldwide. Clearly, you alone cannot afford to mimic the entire population of British women but, as a start, it will do. Be warned, though: you may have to justify your excessively large etinyloestradiol order by pretending that you are an NHS supplier.

U-bender

The next step is to target the stuff where it will have the most effect. And that, as the West Yorkshire pipe amply reveals, is perhaps the easy part. Just flush it down the loo. Then, contact like-minded ecocide sympathizers, pass on details of where to obtain the chemical and soon you will command a small network of UK volunteers stationed by their lavs in the pursuit of aqua gender-bending. It might be prudent to dissolve the pills in warm body-temperature water before flushing, in order to guarantee that they safely navigate the antiquities of Britain’s sewage system. Thankfully, the effects of etinyloestradiol will not be diluted. Conventional sewage treatment does not eradicate the hormone, and synthetic oestrogen is not broken down in the wild, a factor that grants it better weighting on the value-for-money scale. The effects will be reassuringly quick.

Scientists in Canada added oestrogen at levels found in sewage to a remote lake in Ontario. After just a year they started to observe a creeping feminization. Even the male fathead minnow (and one wonders in disbelief how this creature could ever hope to pass itself off as a lady) turned sex. Inevitably, delightfully, ‘reproductive failure’ followed and fathead numbers began to crash. They never recovered, according to the results of the Canadian tests.

Other inspiring reports abound. There are the male tadpoles in Sweden who morphed into females after being fed oestrogen. In one experiment, tadpole dudes who were fed heavy dosages of the hormone became 100 per cent dudess. An Environment Agency report tells of roach who, after feasting on oestrogen, experienced deformities in their sexual organs and began producing eggs rather than sperm. Results of tests on zebra fish at Cardiff University using etinyloestradiol were so pronounced that researchers expressed unease at observing ‘large-scale effects at such low levels of concentration’. But the best news arrived with reports that a male hornyhead turbot had been transformed into a lady. The development must have caused groans in rivers from Leeds to Lagos. If the macho hornyhead could be tamed, scaly chaps everywhere must have thought, what hope for them? The game was up.

Chemical cocktail

Of course, there are other ways to turn man to woman, and it would be unwise, even reckless, to overlook the old ‘gender benders’, or ‘endocrine disruptors’, as the scientific community would rather these chemical lovelies be known. Synthetics found in plastics, shampoos and food packaging mimic oestrogen when ingested. Such useful material gets everywhere and is particularly effective when ingested in cocktail form over the years. Plenty of these ‘endocrine disruptors’ appear to be travelling north on the moist air currents that blow from Europe to the Arctic. When confronted with the frosty, Arctic air, these chemicals condense and fall. They are perhaps most revered for creating the famously pseudo-hermaphrodite polar bears with penis-like stumps, a result which to this day remains one of the most celebrated achievements in the world of chemical scalps. And clearly there is no merit in trying to better such a masterpiece.

Despite a forensic EU review of chemical legislation, a decent number (up to five hundred) of potential endocrine disruptors remain in use, and, thankfully, these hormone-disrupting chemicals are still allowed to be sold even though safer alternatives are available. The next review of legislation is not due until 2012, giving you a reasonable window of opportunity to shrink the man bear a little more. By then, who knows what else will have shrunk, changed or grown?

Let’s hear it for the clam

When scientists chose an estuarine site in the West Country to examine clams, which they had naively hand-picked in the hope that they would be free of chemicals, they experienced a bit of a shock. The clams were transsexual, their Devonian testes containing both sperm and eggs. 60 per cent were like this. For you, it offers a thrilling possibility: initial evidence that oestrogen can potentially survive in seawater, battling the salty tides to turn aquamarine life female. Here, quantities of the female hormone had messed around with clams at the bottom of the food chain. Could, you dare dream, the entire sea one day be declared girls only? Embarrassing speedos would become a thing of the past.

Little surprise that those studying the feminization of fish describe the West Country clam as the aquatic equivalent of the miner’s canary, the bird which chirps an alarm long before men are aware of impending doom. With the mines now mostly closed, instead there’s something in the water. The sexual revolution has proved to be intensely liberating for humanity. Now it is the turn of the misunderstood bloke fish who only ever wanted to be a woman. Once we start adding the Pill to the rivers of the world, there is no reset button. The new sexual revolution is underway.

WHAT’S THE DAMAGE?

* Government makes over-the-counter pill more widely available. Certainty.

* Male pill goes on general sale. Female carp duly start growing penises. Unlikely.