Hello I'm Severn Suzuki speaking for Echo the environmental children's organization, we've raised all the money to come here ourselves
To come five thousand miles to tell you adults you must change your ways
Coming up here today. I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future
Losing my future is not like losing an election or a few points on the stock market I
am here to speak for all generations to come I
Am here to speak speak on behalf of the starving children
Around the world whose cries go unheard
I
am here to speak for the countless animals dying across this planet because they have nowhere left to go I
Am afraid to go out in the Sun now because of the holes in our ozone
I'm afraid to breathe the air because I don't know what chemicals are in it I
Used to go and I used to go fishing in Vancouver my home with my dad until just a few years ago
We found the fish full of cancers and now we hear of animals and plants going extinct every day
vanishing forever
in my life
I have dreamt of seeing the great herds of wild animals jungles and rainforests full of birds and butterflies
But now I wonder if they will even exist for my children to see
Did you have to worry of these things when you were my age
All this is happening before our eyes, and yet we act as if we have all the time we want and all the solutions
I'm only a child, and I don't have all the solutions, but I know I want you to realize neither do you?
You don't know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer
You don't know how to bring the salmon back up in a dead stream
You don't know how to bring back an animal now extinct
And you can't bring back the forest that once grew there is now a desert
If you don't know how to fix it, please stop breaking it
Here you may be delegates of your governments
business people organisers reporters or politicians
But really your mothers and fathers
sisters and brothers aunts and uncles and
All of you are someone's child
I'm only a child yet
I know we are all part of a family five billion strong in fact 30 million species strong and borders
And governments will never change that
I'm only a child yet
I know we are all in this together and should act as one single world towards one single goal
In my anger I am NOT blind and in my fear
I'm not afraid of telling the world how I feel in my country we make so much waste we buy and throw away
Buy and throw away Buy and throw away and yet northern countries
Will not share with the needy even when we have more than enough. We are afraid to share
We are afraid to let go of some of our wealth in Canada
We live the privileged life with plenty of food water and shelter we have watches bicycles
two television sets the list could go on for two days
Two days ago here in Brazil. We were shocked when we spent time with some children living on the streets
this is what one child told us I
wish I was rich and
If I were I would give all the street children food
clothes
medicines
shelter and love and affection if
A child on the streets who has nothing is willing to share
Why are we who have everything still so greedy I?
Can't stop thinking that these are children my own age
That it makes a tremendous difference where you are born
that I could be one of those children living in the favelas of Rio I
Could be a child starving in Somalia
or a victim of war in the Middle East or a beggar in India I
Am only a child yet. I know if all the money spent on war
Was spent on finding environmental answers ending?
Poverty and finding treaties. What a wonderful place this earth would be at school
Even in kindergarten you teach us how to behave in the world
You teach us
to not to fight with others
to work things out
to respect others to clean up our mess not to hurt other creatures to
Share not be greedy
Then why do you go out and do do the things you tell us not to do?
Do not forget why you are attending these conferences who you're doing this for we are your own children
You are deciding. What kind of a world we are growing up in
Parents should be able to comfort their children by saying everything's going to be alright
It's not the end of the world and we're and we're doing the best we can
But I don't think you can say that to us anymore
Are we even on your list of priorities?
My dad always says you are what you do not what you say
Well what you do makes me cry at night?
You grown ups say you love us
But I challenge you please make
Your actions reflect your words. Thank you