The contents here are partially modified from a newspaper article issued in September 2002.
You don't know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer.
You don't know how to bring salmon up a dead stream.
You don't know how to bring back an animal now extinct.
And you can't bring back forests that once grew where now there is only desert.
If you don't know how to fix it, please stop breaking it! |
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Severn Cullis-Suzuki
Born in 1979. Graduated from Yale University. When Twelve years old, on behalf of the Environmental Children's Organization (ECO), she delivered a powerful speech alerting people to the dangerous state of the earth and received a standing ovation at the UN's Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Since then, she has conducted a variety of activities for the prevention of global warming as well as environmental conservation. She also participated in the Johannesburg World Summit held in August 2002 as a member of the advisory committee. |
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(The following is an excerpt from her speech at a session of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), called the "Earth Summit," held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. A Japanese version is available from the Sloth Club [Namake-mono Club])
Hello, I'm Severn Suzuki speaking for E.C.O. - The Environmental Children's organization. We are a group of twelve and thirteen-year-olds from Canada trying to make a difference: Vanessa Suttie, Morgan Geisler, Michelle Quigg and me.We raised all the money ourselves to come six thousand miles to tell you adults you must change your ways.
Coming 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. We cannot afford to be not heard.
I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of the holes in the ozone. I am afraid to breathe the air because I don't know what chemicals are in it. I used to go fishing in Vancouver with my dad until just a few years ago we found the fish full of cancers. And now we hear about 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 about these little 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 salmon back up a dead stream. You don't know how to bring back an animal now extinct. And you can't bring back forests that once grew where there is now 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, brothers and sister, aunts and uncles - and all of you are somebody'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 we all share the same air, water and soil - 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 to tell the world how I feel. |
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