Hi, I'm Severn Suzuki speaking for ECO (Environmental Children's Organisation), Infantil Environment Organization.
We are a group of children 13 to 14 years in Canada trying to make a difference: Vanessa Suttie, Morgan Geisler, Michelle Quigg and me.
We raised the money ourselves to come here, five thousand miles to say to you adults, you have to change your ways.
Coming here today, I have a secret agenda.
I fight for my future.
Losing my future is not like losing an election or a few points in the stock market
I'm here to speak for all generations to come. I'm here
to speak on behalf of 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 can not stand not being heard.
I have fear of the sun due to the holes in the ozone layer.
I have afraid to breathe the air because I do not know what chemicals are in it.
I used to go fishing in Vancouver, my home, with my father until a few years ago found the fish full of cancers.
And now we hear that animals and plants become extinct every day vanishing forever.
During my life I have dreamed of seeing the big herds of wild animals, jungles and rainforests full of birds and butterflies, but now I wonder if they even exist for my children to see.
Did you have to ask you these things when you were my age?
All this is happening before our eyes and we act as if we had all the time we want and all the solutions.
I'm just a girl and I have all the answers, but I want you to realize, neither do you.
not know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer.
not know how to restore the salmon stream.
not know how to resurrect an extinct animal.
And they can not restore the forests that once grew where there is now deserted.
If they know how to fix it, please stop breaking it.
here should be delegates from governments, business people, organizers, reporters or politicians, but really you are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and you are all somebody's son. Even
'm just a girl, and know we are all part of a family, five billion strong, in fact, for thirty million species, and we all share the same air, water and land.
borders and governments will never change that. Even
'm just a girl, and I know we're all in this together and we must act as a single world towards one single goal.
In my rage I am not blind, and in my fear I am not afraid to tell the world how I feel.
In my country we waste so much ... We buy and throw away, buy and throw away, and yet northern countries will not share with the needy.
even have more than enough, we are afraid of losing some of our wealth, afraid to share.
In Canada, we live a privileged life, full of food, water and shelter.
we have watches, bicycles, computers and television.
two days ago, here in Brazil, we were shocked when we spent some time with some children living on the street.
And one child told us: "I wish I was rich, and if it were, would give all the street children food, clothes, medicines, shelter and love and affection."
If a street kid who has nothing is willing to share, why are we who have everything, so greedy?
I can not help thinking that these children are my age, where you are born makes a tremendous difference, which could be one of those children living in the favelas of Rio, which could be a child starving in Somalia; a victim of the war in the Middle East or a beggar in India.
I'm still only a child and that if all money spent on war was used to end poverty and environmental solutions, what a wonderful place would be the Earth.
At school, even kindergarten, teach us to behave in the world
You teach us not to fight with others to fix things, to respect, to amend our actions, not to hurt other creatures, to share and not be greedy.
So why go out and spend to do things that tell us not to do?
not forget why you attend these conferences, do so because we are his children.
are deciding what kind of world we grow.
Parents should be able to comfort their children by saying "everything will be alright '," this is not the end of the world "and" we're doing the best we can "
. I do not think they can say that anymore.
Are we even on your priority list?
My dad always says: "You are what you do, not what you say."
Well, what you do makes me mourn for the night. You
, adults, say we want. I challenge
: please, do your actions reflect your words.
Thanks.
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