The story well tell in 2050

so

have any of you ever had someone

approach you on the street

asking you to sign a petition we all

have right

well did you try to avoid eye contact

maybe walk away quickly

i know i have many times i’m usually in

a rush

i’m busy or i’m thinking maybe this

person isn’t even genuine

still one recent friday i went to

support my friend lance here

on the one year anniversary of his

friday climate strikes

he’s been out there for 57 weeks mostly

on his own

so we set up shop on a pedestrian bridge

near his home we held up a homemade sign

climate strike and we tried to get

signatures for a petition

asking the local estate management

office to increase green initiatives

yeah we were asking them to implement

solar panels and composting

into their agenda awesome thanks for

coming with me caleb

yeah you’re welcome lance you know i

thought it was going to be a piece of

cake

you know things are going to be easy for

lance since he’s a kid

i mean he’s just a young boy i mean look

at that cute face

i thought people would be lining up to

speak with us

wow i was wrong people were really mean

and i didn’t expect that at all i mean

these things happen

actually all the time but i’m used to

them now and

despite this i still get loads of

signatures

and talk to loads of people as well

well i still think it’s amazing you’ve

been doing this for

57 weeks so lance how did you

get started in taking climate action

pretty much that was one and a half

years ago

i started noticing greta timber after my

mom showed me a video of her on my phone

she was talking about how there were

only 10 years left to act

i was shocked i couldn’t believe this

thing i had only heard once or twice

before

was so important and could affect my

future so much

and i was pretty surprised that someone

so young

could cut through all the bs and talk

about something so

important wow lance so did that make you

feel like you should

also do something definitely yes my mom

bet i

wouldn’t do anything so i decided to

prove her

wrong i

pretty much decided to organize a beach

cleanup i designed a poster

checked the time and posted it online

left one day for advertising

and what did you know no one came

so my dad decided okay we are going to

check

out how other people are doing it that’s

why

me and my dad got signed up for your

cleanup and that’s where i met you caleb

how did you get started well for me

i got started in 2009. wait

isn’t that when you were born once

actually yeah

yeah well anyways um that year i had

just moved back to hong kong after

living overseas for 10 years

i was hiking a lot in the country parks

that year and

one day i just suddenly noticed

something had changed

what happened to the blue skies i grew

up seeing and why was there rubbish

everywhere

in the country parks and also washing up

on our beaches

so what did you do well i was a bit like

you lance

i didn’t know what to do except i had to

do something

so i decided to just organize some small

beach and trail cleanups

mainly with my friends later in 2012

i decided to form a small ngo eco marine

that i still run today my goal at the

time

was to also help other people start on

the journey

of responsibility and connection to

nature

well i didn’t know what to do really and

i had no idea how to achieve my goal

i think that’s why i felt a strong

connection with you lance when we first

met

at the beach cleanup that organized last

year yeah and then i told you about my

zero turnout cleanup a few weeks earlier

yeah i remember that really well you

know it brought back so many memories

for me

i i sort of wanted to cry a little bit

of course i tried not to

it brought made me think back to the

times when i just got started

and i organized events and you know

nobody came at all

so i immediately wanted to help you i

said why don’t we organize an event

together and i would try to help to get

more people to come

and since then we’ve been helping each

other in our own unique ways

on our own journeys so lance what have

you been doing

in the past year pretty much after i

noticed greta

it was global climb strike day last

september

and i was really surprised that nobody

was striking in hong kong

so i decided to take it into my own

hands i

stapled four pieces of a4 paper together

yes actually

imagine that and i wrote

school strike for climate action on them

and

i just started walking down the hallway

in my school

oh i’m sure your teacher saw that what

did they say about

it well you’re right almost immediately

i was stopped and told people come here

to learn so

well they deserve an undistracted

learning environment don’t they

it took them a bit of time to reason

with me but they did let me

strike by standing in separate room and

also going out

occasionally holding my sign in recess

since then i found a different way i

have been striking before class on the

days that they were school

on the days that they weren’t i’ve been

striking in my neighborhood

and i’ve i’ve been doing it for 57 weeks

and even when i’m on holiday as well

i’ve striked once or twice

overseas in berlin and taipei

wow really you don’t even take a break

when you’re on holiday

well yeah definitely i mean there’s this

well bit of

saying let’s just put it that way among

the climate activists and that’s

the climate change doesn’t take a break

and we don’t either

so that’s why i’ve been doing petitions

uh doing online talks

i’ve been talking to media who are

willing to share the message

of the climate emergency and so what is

it that you’re trying to tell other

people

typically when i strike i tell people

about the different aspects of their

lives

that could be affected by climate change

say

if you’re living very close to the water

uh or if you’re living in

shimsa trujillo to moon you have a

chance

of getting affected by sea level rise

and um when they see me they’re reminded

of their

part in shaping the world we’re going to

live in tomorrow

how about you caleb i know you’ve done

some amazing things

in the past 11 years

well actually immediately after i formed

eco marine

a gigantic plastic disaster struck hong

kong

when two big shipping containers fell

into the waters

each shipping container contained

millions and millions of

tiny tiny pre-production plastic pellets

these plastic pellets then leaked out of

the containers into the water

and then washed ashore onto hong kong’s

beaches

there were so many so many pallets on

the on the beaches

that looked like it had snowed tens of

thousands of volunteers showed up to

help

and i remember standing on a remote

beach working with over 10 environmental

groups

coordinating the big cleanup wow that

must have been

quite a scene wasn’t it right how did

that make you feel

well lance you know i was so sad because

of the disaster

but at the same time i was very touched

and inspired by the people

you know i was still starting out then

and i wasn’t sure what i was doing

and i was feeling a bit lonely but that

experience provided a lot of

encouragement

i could feel the strong desire of the

public to take action

and i felt that we were all in this

together

and since then i know you’ve done some

even more amazing things

can you tell us more sure um

well things have grown organically over

time i mean it’s been a few years

nowadays i think of myself as a sort of

starter

like for sourdough bread well except for

people

businesses and communities

these businesses people and communities

sometimes have climate change ideas and

they often come up to me

because they’re not quite sure about

them why i always tell them

that they’re excellent ideas very very

worthwhile

and i try to help them develop them

launch them and make them a success

i also connect them with other people

that i think can help

and i try to promote their projects to

the wider community

wow so can you share some of these

projects

sure well this year i’m working with a

farm in south lantau

that are reviving farming in hong kong

rice farming actually

and nowadays they’re now ready to take a

next step

and they plan to help conserve the

adjacent coastline

they’ve done some work already by doing

an ecological baseline survey

and what we’re doing is organizing

family-friendly

events together combining cleanup and

farming

so our idea is to create a cleaner

environment for the sensitive mudflat

ecosystems

and we also want to introduce this

beautiful eco-friendly place to hong

kong families

wow i love to join those events when’s

the next one

well the next one is coming up at the

end of this month

i really hope you can join well another

project i’m working on

is i’m working with a leather goods

company that is using

waste leather from the manufacturing

industry that would have otherwise gone

to landfill to create beautiful high-end

handbags

again we are working together on some

public events where we use leftover

leather

actually the leftover of the leftovers

to hand mix

small leather goods our idea is to think

i asked the volunteers to think about

the manufacturing process

and consumption we show them how much

materials and work goes into making even

a small item

wow and wait a second

don’t you have a full-time job where do

you get the time to do all this stuff

well lance um yeah you’re right i have a

full-time job

and it’s a great question and i don’t

really know the answer

but usually if something makes it onto

my calendar it just somehow gets done

i try not to overthink it i try to stay

a little organized

and just do it and usually i’m just

helping people out at the beginning

until they’re ready to continue and grow

their project themselves

well caleb you’ve taught me so much

about the practical side of things how

to

influence and organize people to take

action

you’ve also i remember you taught me to

give us

quick speech at the start of clean up

and wait a rubbish at the end

but the biggest thing you’ve given me is

a confidence boost

i mean without you telling me i could do

this well i wouldn’t be where i

am today wow that that’s so sweet lance

but actually i’ve actually learned so

much from you too

over the past year i look up to you

because you’re so brave

you’re brave to talk to people that

don’t want to listen

i can’t do that i usually just speak to

people that are already a little bit

interested

it’s good that we have different

approaches but i want to be more like

you

braver thank you caleb i mean i never

thought i’d go this far

when i started i’m just an ordinary kid

who started acting after noticing the

climate crisis since then i’ve been able

to spread my message

throughout hong kong and been able to

see changes in the people around me

in 2050 i will be about 41 years old

i hope by then i could have created

a great world that we can live in and

i hope if i ever have kids that they can

still see

the dolphins outside lantau island the

corals when they snorkel chimsachui and

yin long

still above the sea and be able to enjoy

hong kong’s

beautiful country parks in the summer

i hope so too lance and in 2050

i’ll be almost 70. i hope that

the story i tell then is that all the

work we’ve all done together

will have succeeded and that we’re

living in a vibrant world

where our children and grandchildren

maybe

will be thriving so everyone let’s take

the climate agenda

beyond discussion this isn’t something

we should leave to the scientists and

politicians

everyone can take personal action

that’s right no one is too small to make

a difference

and no action is too small to start with

thank you thank you

[Applause]

you