The Girl Who Silenced The World Years Ago

[rldxp]

Severn Cullis-Suzuki was only 12 years old when she spoke before the UN earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. A child speaking before adults representing all the countries in the world – yet her speech was anything but childish. It was a galvanizing admonition and an appeal to everyone to help stop the destruction of the earth’s resources:


If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!


so that future generations, including hers, will still have a livable world to inherit:

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.


She spoke of deforestation, chemicals in the air, the waste and greed in our society, and the wanton destruction of animal and plant species that can never be brought back to life again.

Today, 17 years later, nothing much has changed, some problems are even more acute than they were two decades ago. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that 40% of all organisms on the planet are now facing the risk of extinction. On the road to Copenhagen for the climate summit, very few countries are willing to make the commitment and sign a legally binding treaty to lower their greenhouse gas emissions significantly in the next few years.

What happened? I refuse to concede the argument to the skeptics who see the U.N. as a sham created by entrenched interests to give us all an illusion that something is being done and that things are changing. I believe there are enough of us who truly care about this planet, it’s time to make our voices heard and as Severn Suzuki said, to “make our actions consistent with our words.”



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQmz6Rbpnu0


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 rain forests 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 realise, 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, organisers, 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.

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 lose some of our wealth, afraid to share.

In Canada, we live the privileged life, with plenty of food, water and shelter – we have watches, bicycles, computers and television sets.

Two days ago here in Brazil, we were shocked when we spent some time with some children living on the streets. And 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, medicine, shelter and love and affection.”

If a child on the street who has nothing, is willing to share, why are we who have everything still so greedy?

I can’t stop thinking that these children are my age, that it makes a tremendous difference where you are born, that I could be one of those children living in the favellas of Rio; I could be a child starving in Somalia; a victim of war in the Middle East or a beggar in India.

I’m only a child yet I know if all the money spent on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environmental answers, what a wonderful place this earth would be!

At school, even in kindergarten, you teach us to behave in the world. You teach us:

* 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 the things you tell us not to do?

Do not forget why you’re attending these conferences, who you’re doing this for – we are your own children. You are deciding what kind of world we will grow up in. Parents should be able to comfort their children by saying “everything’s going to be alright” , “we’re doing the best we can” and “it’s not the end of the world”.

But I don’t think you can say that to us anymore. Are we even on your list of priorities? My father 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. I challenge you, please make your actions reflect your words. Thank you for listening.

[xcoder]

Amazing, really amazing!!!

[mr_j]

tab we need alternatives what do they want us to do? turn off the electricity, make bows and arrows and go back hunting and fishing for survival?

and so what if creatures go extinct? I am not losing my sleep because there is no more panda

we at the 21 rst century are living the golden age of te human race, every one of us now has more power, convenience and access to knowledge than the richest of the richest had 100 years before and back. we have more access to knowledge now than bill clinton had as a president. high level of convenience comes at a high price. everyone would clap their hands and agree that we must save the planet, but what are you really willing to give up for that purpose?

elctricity? computers? your transportation? personnaly I can't imagine giving stuff up, I was corrupted by power

[KeXasthur]

Dude, I've seen programs about male frogs having sudden sexual transformations and turned into females, without surgeries just due toxications and environmental problems. Really, it's not about being modern and all, we are hurting our self. We are not just progressing anymore. We are moving backwards and there will come a time, very near where we can't turn the time back. The world will not be able to adapt to the changes people have made in the last few decades. I am not saying we need to suddenly go back to the old ages, but we are not even considering the consequences. Anyway, you can't ask a world that developed nuclear weapons and used them to care about the future, so all this talk is useless. I mean most would say who cares about Pandas disappearing in 50 years when we might all disappear in half that time ? And it's just true.

[mr_j]

the best alternatives I can think of is, nuclear fuel to generate electricity instead of gas and oil
and if wars become less

it is a shame that nuclear reactors are not very common in countries, and that the UN does not for example encourage them, they are cheap and now safer than before, and a nuclear reactor in syria for example can light up all of syria+lebanon, you could save tonnes of money and polution

[xcoder]

The idea is not countries owning nuclear power (of all kinds) only.
There's also the oil domination, the electricity reactors are just too small comparing to automotive.

It certainly doesn't seem real that the world hasn't found an efficient alternative to that yet, or most probably hasn't made enough effort to find a replacement.

Eventually electrical cars are the best known alternative so far. Having efficient nuclear reactors could generate enough power to solve this and if electricity price increases it wouldn't really matter as long fuel will be less used.

Human greed is a reality, all nations priority is to have more and more power the best possible without taking into account the direct or side effects.

[mr_j]

I have been reading on nuclear power, apparently there are a lot of reactors in the world, and alot of new ones being built, but with the increasing consumption, the percentage of power generated by nuke reactors is decreasing

power generated through water like the ones we have in Lebanon, it turns out, it is not as good as the geography lessons at school made it appear. it seems the dams hurt the fish living in these rivers, and if the rivers dry or over flood it can be a problem, and if a dam erupts it can kill many thousands, and there is way more incidents involving dams who were destroyed than there are incidents of nuclear meltdown