Make your actions on climate reflect your words | Severn Cullis-Suzuki

65,215 views ・ 2020-10-16

TED


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Transcriber: TED Translators Admin Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
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(Video) Severn Cullis-Suzuki: I am here to speak for all generations to come.
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I am here to speak on behalf of the starving children around the world
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whose cries go unheard.
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I'm here to speak for the countless animals
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dying across this planet
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because they have nowhere left to go.
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(Video) SCS: I am afraid to go out in the sun now
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because of the holes in our ozone.
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I'm afraid to breathe the air,
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because I don't know what chemicals are in it.
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I used to go fishing in Vancouver, my home, with my dad,
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until just a few years ago,
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we found the fish full of cancers.
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SCS: A generation ago, I was that 12-year-old child.
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In 1992, I had five minutes
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to speak to the UN's Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
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My friends and I had started an environmental club,
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and we'd traveled to this huge international meeting
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about environment and development
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to tell the adults they had to change their ways.
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That same year 1,700 scientists
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would issue the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity
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to tell us that humans and the natural world
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were on a collision course.
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Much like Greta Thunberg and her peers today,
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we believed that decision-makers should be acting on science and facts.
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And the facts were telling us
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that we were headed for ecological collapse.
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(Video) SCS: All this is happening before our eyes,
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and yet we act as if we have all the time we want
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and all the solutions.
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SCS: Back then, climate change had been identified,
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but we had yet to really feel it.
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Today, almost 30 years later,
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climate change is no longer a prediction.
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It is here, and it happened far faster than even the experts predicted.
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We did not stop it.
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Today the work that we must do is about mitigation,
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trying to limit how bad it gets.
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In 2015, in Paris, the world agreed
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to limit the planet's warming to one and a half degrees Celsius,
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as beyond that would pose too great a threat to human life.
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To meet this,
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we will have to cut our global emissions by half in the next 10 years.
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(Video) SCS: I'm only a child and I don't have all the solutions,
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but I want you to realize neither do you.
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SCS: Young people are always at the frontlines of any revolution.
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And it's young people who ask me,
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"What did your speech actually do?
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Why didn't the delegates actually listen?"
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Well, looking back,
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I think that the delegates of the conference actually did listen,
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not just to me,
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but to the thousands of voices calling for change.
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If you look at the declarations, the documents that came out of Rio,
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they are radical.
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They include the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change
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set up to stabilize
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greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere
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and prevent dangerous interference with the climate system.
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Twenty-three years before the Paris Agreement,
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154 countries signed this legally binding international agreement.
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(Video) SCS: I'm only a child, yet I know we are all in this together
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and should act as one single world towards one single goal.
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SCS: So, why didn't the world take action?
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Instead, governments focused on growing the economy,
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on business interests
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and of course, winning the next election.
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It shows a crisis in human governance,
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where our political systems make it impossible
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to act in long-term interests for the people and future generations.
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Today it's 2020.
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Again we have the momentum.
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We have the Paris Agreement to limit the Earth's warming.
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We have youth and social justice demands.
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We have calls for divestment.
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We have calls for climate emergencies.
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We have the science, we have the solutions
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and we all are experiencing climate change.
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We are at a moment parallel to Rio.
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Now is the time to take action.
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(Video) SCS: If you don't know how to fix it,
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please stop breaking it.
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SCS: How do we ensure that this time we act on our words?
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History has shown us that in moments of crisis,
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society can truly transform.
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We've seen this in times of war,
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in times of economic collapse and in times of disease.
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Today, we live in the time of COVID-19.
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We've seen governments and institutions across all sectors
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working quickly, working together.
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Humans like to think that we're in control of everything,
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but we have been reminded today
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that the laws of nature are the true bottom line.
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We've been reminded that science and expertise are crucial to our survival.
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COVID-19 has shone a light on inequity
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and revealed our prejudiced infrastructures.
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It is a warning.
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If we don't listen, if we don't change,
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next time could be far worse.
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(Video) SCS: My dad always says, "You are what you do, not what you say."
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Well, what you do makes me cry at night.
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You grown-ups say you love us, but I challenge you,
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please, make your actions reflect your words.
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SCS: That last sentence summarizes my entire speech at Rio.
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Please, make your actions reflect your words.
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Today, I'm a mother, I have two little boys.
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Parents, I'm speaking to you.
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Our generation is determining the lives of our children.
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We have 10 years where we can still make a difference.
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We have 10 years to cut our emissions by half.
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The way to truly love our children
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is to make our actions reflect our words.
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Now it's time to get to work.
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Thank you.
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