Listen to the children by Severn Cullis Suzuki
“Hello, I am Severn Suzuki speaking for E.C.O – the
Environmental Children’s Organization. We are a group of 12-
and 13-year-olds trying to make a difference, Vanessa Suttie,
Morgan Geisler, Michelle Quigg and me. We’ve raised all the
money to come here ourselves, to come 5,000 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 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 am afraid to breath
the air, because I don’t know what chemicals are in it. I used
to go fishing in Vancouver, my home, with my Dad until, just
a few years ago, we found a 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 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 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 where 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, organizers, reporters or politicians. But, really, you
are 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, 5 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 am
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 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.
You are deciding what kind of a world we are growing up in.
Parents should be able to comfort their children by saying
‘Everything is going to be all right, it’s not the end of the
world, and we are 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.”
