#Can you hear me?

This is the speech Greta Thunberg gave to the English parliament on April 23rd 2019:

It’s called Can you hear me?

‘My name is Greta Thunberg. I am 16 years old. I come from Sweden. And I speak on behalf of future generations.

I know many of you don‘t want to listen to us - you say we are just children. But we’re only repeating the message of the united climate science.

Many of you appear concerned that we are wasting valuable lesson time, but I assure you we will go back to school the moment you start listening to science and give us a future. Is that really to much to ask?

In the year 2030 I will be twenty-six years old. My little sister Beata will be twenty-three. Just like many of your own children or grandchildren. That is a great age, we have been told. When you have all your life ahead of you. But I am not so sure if it will be that great for us.

I was fortunate to be born in a time and place where everyone told us to dream big; I could become whatever I wanted to. I could live wherever I wanted to. People like me had everything we needed and more. Things our grandparents could not even dream of. We had everything we could ever wish for and yet now we may have nothing.

Now we probably don’t even have a future anymore.

Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money. It was stolen from us every time you told us that the sky was the limit, and that you only live once.

You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to. And the saddest thing is that most children are not even aware of the fate that awaits us. We will not understand it until it’s too late. And yet we are the lucky ones. Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences. But their voices are not heard.

Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?

Around the year 2030, 10 years, 252 days and 10 hours away from now, we will be in a position where we set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, that will most likely lead to the end of our civilisation as we know it. That is unless, in that time, permanent and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society have taken place, including a reduction of CO2 emissions by at least 50 per cent.’

It is quite a bit longer than that but my iPad is on low battery.

Like I said in my previous post tomorrow I am going to a meeting with the Wandsworth council about declaring a climate emergency.

Thank you for reading this blog. And to all the adults in the world. You can’t eat money. It’s our future. It shouldn’t just be us making the difference.