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