#1000actionsfortheplanet #climateaction

Over the last five nights Millennium Kids have stepped up and spoken about their concern for climate change at Kwongkan Sand – a performance by Ochre Contemporary Dance Company at the Fremantle Art Centre.

Cloe spoke last night. She met with Phil, Ochre Contemporary Dance Company to discuss her role before the show.

This was Cloe’s  first ever public speaking event.

She felt it was important to have a say.

Kaya wanju wanju

I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands, the Noongar people, where Perth now stands, pay respect to their Elders – past, present and emerging

I would like to begin with an aboriginal proverb : We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home.

This quote shows how wise Aboriginal people’s approach to life was and how much reverence they had and still have for the earth.

This ancestral wisdom that all Aboriginal populations had, allowed them to thrive for millennial.

But as our current civilization is growing, this sort wisdom is slowly being forgotten.

Many of us think that progress and scientific consensus are the only things we need in order to live prosperous lives.

But in less than a 100 years, our current post-industrial civilization has had more impact on the earth and the climate than the 200 thousands years before then.

It is an acknowledgment of the fact that the threat of climate change is assuming critical proportions.

Each and everyday, new events related to the uncontrollable effects of climate change and habitat destruction are taking place all over the world.

Now we find ourselves barreling down the highway towards mass extinction, increasingly erratic weather patterns and extreme temperature fluctuations.

In the news last week we learned, that the last for 4 years have been the hottest in record.

Climate change is not a matter of perspective or political standpoint.

It has been acknowledged as the biggest threat to the survival of our planet and human kind. This is why it should concern every single one of us.

But especially young people.

And as a young person, I am concerned.

I am scared to live in a world where the variety of plastic in the ocean will be as diverse as the remaining species of coral in the great barrier reef.

Where the landscapes of my childhood will become the new expansion plan of a coal mine.

Where my future as a human being will be compromised by the mistakes of the generations before me.

To all the adults here, did you have to worry about those issues when you were my age ? Is it fair for me and all the children in the world, to bear the mistakes of our predecessors or suffer the consequences of bad political idleness?

Its effects will not result in the loss of some points on the stock market or some votes in a political campaign but in the downfall of our humanity.

But it does not have to be that way:

We all have been told that the problem of climate change is too big to handle and that we are too small to do anything. But what I have a learned in my short life, is that we are never too small to make a difference.

Our everyday choices, to the food we consume to the clothes we wear, can make such a big impact on nature, the climate and people’s lives.

In the past few years, an environmental revolution has started to take place in all over the world.

People driven off by the envy of changing this future into something so positive and so powerful are leading this environmental revolution.

In Sri Lanka: Seacology, a nonprofit environmental conservation organization, is helping Sri Lanka become the first nation in history to preserve and replant all of its mangrove forests.

In Australia:Monash University,Australia’s largest university, has committed to reach net zero emissions by 2030 for all of its Australian campuses.

But you don’t have to be a genius or to come up with the schemes an amazing machine to change the world.

Most of all, we need to reshape our way of thinking.

We have to be capable of transcending our indifference and apathy for our planet and our climate.

Every great revolution starts from within.

Just broadening our horizons and opening our minds to new possibilities in terms of positive change and green innovations can make such a big impact on us and those around us.

And as we know our thoughts become our words and words become our actions.

And it is our common actions that are going to dictate who we are and who we will be as a single Humanity.

So let our actions to be filled with respect and ancestral prescience for the Earth and the climate as it will shape our future and the future of generations to come.

After all:

We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love

Kaya, I am Cloe, I am 16 and I am a millenium kid. Thank you.