00:00I hear signs of despair from some of the children of today because of the headlines that did not exist when I was a child.
00:11I mean, wars, poverty, disease, just the fate of the planet as a whole.
00:19The worst news would be if we did not know the nature of the problems we face because we are the cause and we can also be the cure.
00:27It's knowledge, it's knowing that is the key to feeling that sense of not just hope, but really optimism.
00:38If I had to choose a time to be a kid, it would be right now because the things that are now known that nobody could know when I was a child,
00:48if we could take what is now known back to when I started out as a young scientist, people knew what is now known.
01:00Think of the difference we could make armed with the knowledge that we currently have.
01:06We would have taken action to protect whales much sooner than we did.
01:11We would not ever have scaled up the extraction of ocean wildlife on the scale that now threatens the collapse,
01:20not just of individual species, but the way the ocean functions as a whole.
01:26Taking squid by the tongue, these incredible creatures that are so important to the integrity of the ocean itself.
01:34So, imagine if we did not know.
01:40Now we know.
01:42We do have time.
01:43But not a lot.
01:45But think ahead.
01:47I can think back.
01:48But I also like to think, kids of today, children, what your future is going to be.
01:55You might be there 50 years from now, looking back, saying, yes, we made the changes.
02:02And if we hadn't changed right now, right now, this time, the future for all of, not just the future of children,
02:11but the future of life on Earth, would be much less what we want it to be, what it can be.
02:21We're just on the edge of collapse of many of the systems that make Earth habitable.
02:29You, we, all of us 21st century human beings, are privileged to be around at the time when we can make the change that is needed
02:37to secure a long, enduring, and prosperous future for ourselves within the natural systems that make our existence possible.
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