Severn Cullis-Suzuki's Speech at the Rio Summit in 1992

She was the Greta Thunberg of her time — and child climate activist Severn Cullis-Suzuki's 1992 Rio Summit speech is still relevant today.

Transcript

00:00I am here to speak for all generations to come. I am here to speak on behalf of

00:07the starving children around the world whose cries go unheard. I am here to

00:12speak for the countless animals dying across this planet because they have

00:17nowhere left to go. I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of the holes in

00:24our ozone. I'm afraid to breathe the air because I don't know what chemicals are

00:30in it. I used to go fishing in Vancouver, my home, with my dad

00:37until just a few years ago we found the fish full of cancers. And now we hear of

00:44animals and plants going extinct every day, vanishing forever. In my life I have

00:53dreamt of seeing the great herds of wild animals, jungles and rainforests full of

00:58birds and butterflies. But now I wonder if they will even exist for my children

01:04to see. Did you have to worry of these things when you were my age? All this is

01:12happening before our eyes and yet we act as if we have all the time we want and

01:17all the solutions. I'm only a child and I don't have all the solutions but I know

01:25I want you to realize neither do you. You don't know how to fix the holes in our

01:31ozone layer. You don't know how to bring the salmon back up in a dead stream. You

01:37don't know how to bring back an animal now extinct and you can't bring back the

01:43forests that once grew where there is now a desert. If you don't know how to

01:49fix it, please stop breaking it. Here you may be delegates of your government,

01:56business people, organizers, reporters or politicians, but really you're mothers

02:03and fathers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles and all of you are someone's

02:11child. I'm only a child yet I know we are all part of a family, five billion

02:19strong, in fact 30 million species strong and borders and governments will never

02:25change that. I'm only a child yet I know we are all in this together and should

02:32act as one single world towards one single goal. In my anger I am not blind

02:40and in my fear I am not afraid of telling the world how I feel. In my

02:45country we make so much waste, we buy and throw away, buy and throw away, buy and

02:52throw away and yet northern countries will not share with the needy. Even when

02:57we have more than enough we are afraid to share, we are afraid to let go of some

03:03of our wealth. I am only a child yet I know if all the money spent on war was

03:09spent on finding environmental answers, ending poverty and finding treaties, what

03:15a wonderful place this earth would be. At school, even in kindergarten, you teach us

03:23how to behave in the world. You teach us to not to fight with others, to work

03:30things out, to respect others, to clean up our mess, not to hurt other creatures, to

03:38share not be greedy. Then why do you go out and do the things you tell us

03:44not to do? Do not forget why you are attending these conferences, who you're

03:51doing this for. We are your own children. You are deciding what kind of a world we

03:59are growing up in. Parents should be able to comfort their children by saying

04:04everything's going to be alright, it's not the end of the world and we're

04:09doing the best we can. But I don't think you can say that to us anymore. Are we

04:15even on your list of priorities? My dad always says you are what you do, not what

04:23you say. Well, what you do makes me cry at night. You grown-ups say you love us but

04:32I challenge you, please make your actions reflect your words. Thank you.