How are We Still Not Acting on Climate Change
[Music]
hi
my name is sandra gutsy i’m 17 years old
and i’m a student and a climate justice
activist
and i’m just going to jump right into it
and be completely honest and blunt
i am really really angry
we have had so many people young old
scientists students indigenous elders
stand on a stage or a platform and talk
about how
bad climate change is and how urgently
we need to act and how we’re running out
of time and how severe and dying this is
and how much is affecting us
you know over the past two years we’ve
seen the emergence of the school strike
movement
we’ve seen millions of people students
teachers
workers striking from their workplace
and their schools to protest a lack of
action on this issue
and still we are not seeing the
appropriate action we need to combat
this issue
i just don’t understand how
at first i thought the reason that we
weren’t reacting at the level we needed
to be
was because of a lack of education and i
definitely think that that is a part of
it
but the only problem with that is that
climate change is not a secret
you know maybe five ten years ago we
could argue that a lot of people just
don’t know that this is happening
but at least up until october 19 like i
said we were seeing millions of people
out on the street striking you know
against this issue
climate change deniers do exist but they
are a really really small minority
the majority of the population they know
what climate change is and they
acknowledge that it’s happening
and still you know most of us aren’t
seriously freaking out about a lack of
action
how are we not there yet
you know i considered it but
i think it’s very incorrect to say that
it is because
humans are the disease and we’re you
know
inherently selfish people and as a
society we
only care about ourselves and we don’t
care about each other and the planet and
that’s the reason we’re in the position
that we’re in i don’t think that is true
i think that’s completely incorrect
so i’ve come to the conclusion that the
reason on an individual level
we aren’t all seriously freaking out
about climate change yet is because
there’s a difference between
knowing what climate change is and then
actually comprehending what is happening
like there’s some kind of disconnect
there i think we’re massively
desensitized
and you know i think it’s really easy to
look at climate change
as a political issue or a scientific
issue or an economic issue or a social
issue but
i don’t think we’re at a point here
where we’re feeling what is happening on
an emotional level
you know as put by climate scientist
joel gurkas we need to
feel the devastation that is the impacts
of climate change on our planet it’s a
really sad thing that we’re living
through right now
the fact that our human activity is
leading to threats to our own
livelihoods that is ending lives that is
killing off species and ecosystems that
is devastating
and i think that
reading the facts and statistics it’s
really hard to feel it on an emotional
level and i think that’s one of the main
reasons that
we’re not reacting with the energy that
we need to be yet
also you know especially for the people
who
aren’t experiencing the effects of the
effects of climate change anymore people
living in urbanized areas in
you know developed nations i think
because
right now we’re not feeling the effects
of climate change yet
i think it’s really hard to visualize
and comprehend what is happening
it is really difficult to comprehend the
fact that 50 of vietnam is going to be
underwater by 2050.
it’s really difficult to comprehend what
it will look like seeing
bushfires more frequently seeing natural
disasters more frequently and linking
that back to our own human activity that
is such a difficult thing to visualize
and comprehend but that is the reality
i got involved with climate activism
myself about two years ago but before
then
i was exactly like what i’m describing
i knew the definition of climate change
i knew what it meant i knew that was
happening i
learned a bit about it in school i would
never deny it but
i don’t know i never could comprehend
how bad it was i hadn’t had that
realization yet
the realization of how bad climate
change is that is
massive privilege and that comes to the
people who are not living through its
effects
first nations people people living in
rural and farming communities
people living in desertified regions
like the sahel where they can’t grow
their food
people living on coastal areas or island
nations where their land is threatened
by rising sea levels
people whose houses have been burned
down by the bushfires
they don’t get to have this shocking
realization
of how bad climate change is and how
devastating what we’re experiencing
actually is on an emotional level
they are experiencing its effects
through their everyday life you know
like i said i
live in a urbanized area my life is
completely free from the effects of
climate change
and because the education in my school
on climate change is not completely
comprehensive just yet
there’s nothing in my life that would
allow me to have that comprehension
of how bad climate change is through my
own experiences that had to be a
realization to me
now i don’t plan on talking too much
about the actual science or statistics
of climate change today just because
everything i’ve learned i’ve learned
from another person you know i’m
not a researcher or a scientist myself
i’m not at that stage yet
also the internet could provide you with
far more facts and resources than i ever
could especially
in one talk so you know i’ll allow you
to do that research yourself
um but i just will say this like most
people i would assume
i was really sad in grade 2 when i
learned how turtles they eat plastic
bags when they die because they think
they’re jelly fish
i felt a little sad in grade five when i
learned how drought you know
caused by changes in our weather
patterns from the smoke from our cars
and our factories that’s
you know making it really hard for
farmers to grow their crops and that
might lead to food shortages in the
future
i remember in year 7 when i learned
about curabis and how their government
is really planning to evacuate
because they know that there is no hope
it is inevitable that land that they’ve
been living on for thousands of years
that will be submerged by rising sea
levels and there’s nothing they can do
about it
throughout my education i have you know
read these stories in my textbooks and
heard these facts and figures
and you know when i’m in class i’m able
to feel wow like
that’s sad that’s scary that’s shocking
but i don’t know there’s always been
some kind of disconnect between what i
was learning and actually picturing that
that is happening in real life
that these are real people that i’m
reading about not just a story in my
textbook
as i started to get older though i
started to look closer
i learned about the issue of climate
injustice as opposed to just climate
change how
you know this issue is affecting people
disproportionately it really does
discriminate i learned
how the people who are doing the least
to cause climate change are being
affected the most and the people who are
causing climate change are benefiting
from it you know the ceos of the mining
companies
i learned about transnational
corporations and their greed and the
extent to which they exploit countries
for their labor and their land for their
own financial gain
you know i learned more about the
science of climate change i learned
about how we have all the solutions and
we’re just not implementing them
i learned about how dire and pressing
that this actually is
you know this is going to affect my
grandchildren and my great-grandchildren
but it’s not just about them this is
going to affect my life this is about me
and then i learned that this actually
isn’t even about me because there are
people dead and dying today
because of climate change i don’t know
when it was or where i was or what the
specific fact or figure was but at one
point something changed and i went from
just
you know knowing climate change that it
was happening and knowing that as a fact
to
feeling that emotionally what it meant
what was happening and how dire and
scary it actually is
and i just became so devastated and i
still am so devastated
because when you realize what we’re
going through and how bad it is there is
just so little else to feel
that realization of how bad climate
change is it
changes you it changed my life
completely and until as a society
we start taking climate change into
account with every decision we make and
everything we
we do until our governments start to
implement climate solutions and consider
that
as a part of every single decision they
make it proves that we haven’t had the
realization of how bad climate change is
here we haven’t comprehended that yet
the tricky thing about climate action is
though
is that it’s a bit of a paradox because
the truth is
you know as great it is when individuals
choose to purchase a keep cup or a metal
straw so that they can live their lives
in a more environmentally friendly way
all those small minor consumer
eco-friendly changes that we can make in
our lives
one they’re not affordable to everyone
so we can’t expect everyone to partake
in that
and two they have a very very small
impact
and to take on this crisis we don’t have
time for a movement as gradual as
telling all our friends to start op
shopping
also blaming and shaming individual
actions
is completely wrong because as
individuals even though some of
our actions do perpetrate climate change
for example if you have a car and you
drive anywhere
yes that does have an effect on climate
change but it is not any individual’s
fault
that this is the way our society is
structured and this is the way that we
live
it is the fault of the governments who
are choosing not to act on this
and the transnational corporations who
continue to act like this for their own
financial benefit
and so it’s completely wrong to blame
individuals and shame individuals and
say that it’s the individual’s
responsibility to
make a change on this but those
governments and those transnational
corporations
they didn’t change their actions when we
started learning about climate change
and how bad it was and what was
happening
and they didn’t change their actions two
years ago when the school strike
movement began and we started seeing
mass protests against climate change on
a global scale
transnational corporations and
governments they continue to acknowledge
climate change on their website but they
continue not to act
and that’s one of the biggest problems
we have you know for me the scariest
thing is
when my government they acknowledge that
climate change is happening they don’t
even try to deny it but they justify
not even bare minimum action by talking
about the economy
i could go into the benefits that you
know renewable energy will have on the
economy but i won’t even go there i’ll
just say this
yes it’s okay to be concerned about the
economy you know that
it is valid is okay to have that concern
but if we are letting our concerns about
the economy stop us from acting on
climate change
it is just proof that we have no idea
how bad climate change is at all we
don’t have a clue
you know if we look back in history at
world war one and world war ii
when we were threatened with war our
governments
encouraged people to run out of their
workplaces and onto the front line and
we turned our car making factories into
weapon making factories
and we didn’t for a second think but
what about the economy because we knew
we had a threat to our livelihoods and
livelihoods of others that far
outweighed the economy it made talking
about that you know compared to the loss
of life and that experience completely
immeasurable
it’s kind of the same thing with covert
19 like the governments that kept trying
to keep people out on the street avoided
doing lockdowns trying to keep people
consuming and keeping the economy
turning
those are the countries that had the
most people sick and the most people
dead and are struggling the most right
now
and the economy has crashed anyway the
economy can recover he always has but we
can’t get lives back
we can’t get extinct species back we
can’t get ecosystems back once land goes
under water there’s no getting that back
so why do we not react to climate change
with the same energy that
we reacted to war that some governments
reacted to krovet 19.
part of it is probably because of how
gradual it is like it doesn’t spread
like a pandemic
the effects that we’re seeing now of
climate change were caused by our
actions
so many years ago thing is though it’s
not because it’s not bad enough yet
i think so many people believe that
we’re not at a point in climate change
where
you know it’s so bad that we need to
start acting we’re there now it is bad
right now
you know in australia you think that the
bushfires we experienced this summer
would be a massive wake-up call to so
many people but
we’re still using the economy to justify
a lack of action on climate change and
that just proves that we have no idea
what’s going on
and the thing is the nature of climate
change is that
our actions today they affect what’s
going to happen
in the future so when we get to a point
where we decide that we want to act it’s
already going to be too late
in the bushfires this summer so many
people lost their lives and their houses
it was absolutely devastating it was not
nothing
but it’s only the beginning it is going
to get so much worse from there and the
longer we wait to act the worse it’s
going to be
so unjust as it is that it has fallen on
the people
to act when it’s not our fault it
is our responsibility to act now because
we’re not going to get that change from
anywhere else
individuals especially those from our
community who
you know mostly live in working or
middle class suburban areas
you know our lives are currently not
directly impacted by climate change so
it is our responsibility to start making
the changes that need to be made
i think firstly many of us still need to
wake up to the severity of this crisis
if you are not severely stressed out
about climate change if you don’t think
about it pretty often if it’s not
something that concerns you deeply
then you probably we probably haven’t
realized how bad climate change is just
yet
so researching education taking it upon
yourself to go online and learn more
about this issue is a massive part of it
and then once we have that knowledge
then we can truly start to act as we
need to
we have the ability to vote we have the
ability to boycott to protest to use our
time to use our money if we have it to
use our voice
you know we can get involved in local
groups at the moment it is easier than
ever there are so
many climate change writing
organizations and right now
you can go on their facebook and find
the zoom link to their weekly meeting
and you can get involved and start
making a difference
we’re more than consumers this isn’t
just about buying key cups and op
shopping like i said
there is so much more you can do as a
political person that can make far more
of a change
if you’re living on stolen land like i
am
it is so important to acknowledge your
country acknowledge the full history
of your land you know as a person living
on stolen land i acknowledge that
everything that i have has come from
a violent colonial history that’s the
reality
and that you know invasion was preceded
by one of the richest oldest cultures to
ever exist who cared for this land with
wisdom
and spirituality so much of which was
lost that can never be restored
first nations people are leading the
fight against climate injustice
and they’ve been fighting for the
protection of this land since the
beginning of time
you know we should go without saying
that black lives more than matter they
are vital so we need to be turning to
first nations people and their knowledge
if we are going to have a chance at
taking on this crisis
we can change our banks we can change
our energy providers
and we can buy solar panels if we can
afford them we can change our
supermarkets we can take down newspapers
and the
news reporters that we choose to watch
we can highlight the voices of the
people who are talking about climate
change because that is the most
important issue at the moment
you know
when i say we need to be thinking about
climate change all the time it’s not to
say that
there’s not other things going on in our
lives that matter
and that are important good or bad and
it’s also not to say that there aren’t
other humanitarian issues that need to
take up our time and our thought and our
energy
it’s just that the exploitation of land
and life and people
climate change is linked to everything
and it is the
issue that defines our generation
i am getting really restless
i’m a young person i’m educated on the
matters at hand
how am i supposed to keep staying
positive and staying hopeful and
going about my life when right now i
look at my future and it is not very
bright at all
and i keep seeing the people who have
the power to make the changes that could
be made
like the last few opportunities we have
to make those changes slip between their
fingers
you know i have moments where i’m really
really devastated and i just lose all
hope for the day
i’m grieving my future and that is a
privilege because so many people are
grieving their today’s
but when i say all this and i tell you
that it’s dire and it’s pressing and you
need to be freaking out that’s not to
say that we need to lose hope
because although these moments
inherently i am an optimist you know i
do believe that we can solve this crisis
and that we can achieve justice
it’s just that will take a lot of work
and this hope is going to fade pretty
quickly if it’s not met by action
and you know we’ve seen millions of
people out on the street and it’s hardly
made a dent
so i just don’t know what it’s going to
take anymore to make these changes
and we are running out of time
know this isn’t the most happy
comfortable conversation and talk to
listen to but this is the reality
now say it again we are running out of
time
thank you
you