You Must Change Your Ways….

As I get older and wiser, I am more aware of the children and their concerns for their future. My hope that there will be a home for them I call Mother Earth.

I want them to enjoy Mother Earth as I did when I was younger, in nature, to know all living creatures big and small.

Recently, two high school students came to our meeting to voice their fears about their future. They are young activities. These students needed our help financially to help them kick off their environmental campaign against the government’s plan of expanding the Coal Harbor.

We could hear from their voice how distressing it is for them to grow up in a polluted place in Vancouver. We could feel their fear and we supported them, financially, just enough funds to help them pay for the flyers, bulletins and maybe buttons.

What a courageous and remarkable young minds.

In 1992, a 12-year old girl traveled all the way to Rio de Janeiro and spoke to the United Nations Earth Summit about her concerns on climate change. She spoke for five minutes, five minutes that silenced the world.

That little girl came from Vancouver, BC, Canada. Her name is Severn Cullis-Suzuki, daughter of David Suzuki, a Canadian environmentalist. This is an excerpt of her speech.

“I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of the holes in our 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, my home, with my dad until just a few years ago we found the 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 realise, neither do you!”

21 years later, nothing has changed. She returned to Rio again in 2012. She explains from a new perspective why it is that she believes humanity will act to change our future.

If you don’t know how to fix Mother Earth, please stop breaking her. Be part of the solution.