In 1992, twelve year old Severn Suzuki said to the UN Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro, “I am here to speak for all generations to come. I am here to 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 the planet because they have nowhere left to go.”
The most dangerous thing to think is that someone else will do something.
Climate crisis
That was twenty eight years ago when Severn spoke about the climate and ecological emergency and now it is sixteen year old environmental activist, Greta Thunberg who is telling us the same message because our leaders of the past did not listen. Twenty eight years on, the situation has not changed… in fact, it has become worse. The people in power continue to ignore us, despite their claims that they hear us and understand the urgency of this crisis.
Since 1970, we have lost sixty percent of life on Earth and another million species are at risk of extinction. The twenty hottest years on record have all occurred in the last twenty two years and the climate crisis will become irreversible in less than eleven years’ time. These facts greatly contradict those adults who like to say that they want to leave this world in a better state than when they came into it.
I would like other young people to know that they can also do this.
Youth of the world
But some of us have woken up. On September the twentieth and twenty-seventh, the youth of the world led a global school climate strike to demand that world leaders take the actions and shoulder the responsibility that they should have taken long ago. During those two ‘Fridays for Future’ strikes, over seven million people, from school and work, took part in the strike. My friends and I were among them.
Making a difference
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been passionate about the environment. Wriggling worms intrigued me; I loved to watch the lizards crawl out to sunbathe on the weathered rocks in the garden; I’d sit on the seed-scattered ground and wait for the robin to tentatively feed as close to me as he dared. But later on I learned that not everything in the world is sunny and beautiful. There is a dark side too.
After this realisation came my first explorations into environmentalism and then, on a fateful day ten months ago, I watched Greta Thunberg’s speech to the climate march in Helsinki, Finland. I knew then that I had to join the school strikes. This was a way that I could make a difference.
So since January, my friends and I have been striking outside our school every Friday morning for an hour with numbers ranging from five to fifty. Sometimes it is easy to get disheartened by the political inaction and the seemingly endless news of further ecological decimation. The Amazon rainforest is burning. The recent 2019 State of Nature report tells us that almost half of Scottish species have decreased in abundance. The Bahamas have been reduced to piles of torn down buildings. And even though Scotland’s First Minister declared a climate and ecological emergency on April the twenty-eighth this year, the unprecedented changes needed are still nowhere in sight. These things are demoralizing but they also motivate me because… if not me, who? The most dangerous thing to think is that someone else will do something.
We all need to join together to deflect the earth-shattering bullet.
If I don’t act, then who will?
My campaigning has taken me to Holyrood and Westminster. I have met Greta Thunberg and UK political party leaders including Caroline Lucas and Jeremy Corbyn. I am proud to be a young rewilding ambassador for Scotland: The Big Picture and I’ve spoken at numerous conferences and events.
I would like other young people to know that they can also do this. Everyone, no matter what their age or where they are from, has the power to make an enormous difference. But our leaders are pointing a gun at the planet and we can’t turn away any longer. We all need to join together to deflect the earth-shattering bullet.
Holly Gillibrand (Age 14), Lochaber High School, Fort William
Twitter @HollyWildChild
