Subtitles section Play video
-
Translator: Lilian Chiu Reviewer: Yuhan Wu
-
When I was about eight years old,
-
I first heard about something called climate change or global warming.
-
Apparently, that was something humans have created by our way of living.
-
I was told to turn off the lights to save energy
-
and to recycle paper to save resources.
-
I remember thinking that it was very strange
-
that humans, who are an animal species among others,
-
could be capable of changing the Earth's climate.
-
Because if we were, and if it was really happening,
-
we wouldn't be talking about anything else.
-
As soon as you'd turn on the TV, everything would be about that.
-
Headlines, radio, newspapers,
-
you would never read or hear about anything else,
-
as if there was a world war going on.
-
But no one ever talked about it.
-
If burning fossil fuels was so bad that it threatened our very existence,
-
how could we just continue like before?
-
Why were there no restrictions?
-
Why wasn't it made illegal?
-
To me, that did not add up.
-
It was too unreal.
-
So when I was 11, I became ill.
-
I fell into depression,
-
I stopped talking,
-
and I stopped eating.
-
In two months, I lost about 10 kilos of weight.
-
Later on, I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome,
-
OCD and selective mutism.
-
That basically means I only speak when I think it's necessary -
-
now is one of those moments.
-
For those of us who are on the spectrum,
-
almost everything is black or white.
-
We aren't very good at lying,
-
and we usually don't enjoy participating in this social game
-
that the rest of you seem so fond of.
-
I think in many ways that we autistic are the normal ones,
-
and the rest of the people are pretty strange,
-
especially when it comes to the sustainability crisis,
-
where everyone keeps saying climate change is an existential threat
-
and the most important issue of all,
-
and yet they just carry on like before.
-
I don't understand that,
-
because if the emissions have to stop,
-
then we must stop the emissions.
-
To me that is black or white.
-
There are no gray areas when it comes to survival.
-
Either we go on as a civilization or we don't.
-
We have to change.
-
Rich countries like Sweden need to start reducing emissions
-
by at least 15 percent every year.
-
And that is so that we can stay below a two-degree warming target.
-
Yet, as the IPCC have recently demonstrated,
-
aiming instead for 1.5 degrees Celsius
-
would significantly reduce the climate impacts.
-
But we can only imagine what that means for reducing emissions.
-
You would think the media and every one of our leaders
-
would be talking about nothing else,
-
but they never even mention it.
-
Nor does anyone ever mention
-
the greenhouse gases already locked in the system.
-
Nor that air pollution is hiding a warming
-
so that when we stop burning fossil fuels,
-
we already have an extra level of warming
-
perhaps as high as 0.5 to 1.1 degrees Celsius.
-
Furthermore does hardly anyone speak about the fact
-
that we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction,
-
with up to 200 species going extinct every single day,
-
that the extinction rate today
-
is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than what is seen as normal.
-
Nor does hardly anyone ever speak about the aspect of equity or climate justice,
-
clearly stated everywhere in the Paris Agreement,
-
which is absolutely necessary to make it work on a global scale.
-
That means that rich countries
-
need to get down to zero emissions within 6 to 12 years,
-
with today's emission speed.
-
And that is so that people in poorer countries
-
can have a chance to heighten their standard of living
-
by building some of the infrastructure that we have already built,
-
such as roads, schools, hospitals,
-
clean drinking water, electricity, and so on.
-
Because how can we expect countries like India or Nigeria
-
to care about the climate crisis
-
if we who already have everything don't care even a second about it
-
or our actual commitments to the Paris Agreement?
-
So, why are we not reducing our emissions?
-
Why are they in fact still increasing?
-
Are we knowingly causing a mass extinction?
-
Are we evil?
-
No, of course not.
-
People keep doing what they do
-
because the vast majority doesn't have a clue
-
about the actual consequences of our everyday life,
-
and they don't know that rapid change is required.
-
We all think we know, and we all think everybody knows,
-
but we don't.
-
Because how could we?
-
If there really was a crisis,
-
and if this crisis was caused by our emissions,
-
you would at least see some signs.
-
Not just flooded cities, tens of thousands of dead people,
-
and whole nations leveled to piles of torn down buildings.
-
You would see some restrictions.
-
But no.
-
And no one talks about it.
-
There are no emergency meetings, no headlines, no breaking news.
-
No one is acting as if we were in a crisis.
-
Even most climate scientists or green politicians
-
keep on flying around the world, eating meat and dairy.
-
If I live to be 100, I will be alive in the year 2103.
-
When you think about the future today, you don't think beyond the year 2050.
-
By then, I will, in the best case, not even have lived half of my life.
-
What happens next?
-
The year 2078, I will celebrate my 75th birthday.
-
If I have children or grandchildren, maybe they will spend that day with me.
-
Maybe they will ask me about you,
-
the people who were around, back in 2018.
-
Maybe they will ask why you didn't do anything
-
while there still was time to act.
-
What we do or don't do right now will affect my entire life
-
and the lives of my children and grandchildren.
-
What we do or don't do right now,
-
me and my generation can't undo in the future.
-
So when school started in August of this year,
-
I decided that this was enough.
-
I set myself down on the ground outside the Swedish parliament.
-
I school striked for the climate.
-
Some people say that I should be in school instead.
-
Some people say that I should study to become a climate scientist
-
so that I can "solve the climate crisis."
-
But the climate crisis has already been solved.
-
We already have all the facts and solutions.
-
All we have to do is to wake up and change.
-
And why should I be studying for a future that soon will be no more
-
when no one is doing anything whatsoever to save that future?
-
And what is the point of learning facts in the school system
-
when the most important facts
-
given by the finest science of that same school system
-
clearly means nothing to our politicians and our society.
-
Some people say that Sweden is just a small country,
-
and that it doesn't matter what we do,
-
but I think that if a few children can get headlines all over the world
-
just by not coming to school for a few weeks,
-
imagine what we could all do together if you wanted to.
-
Now we're almost at the end of my talk,
-
and this is where people usually start talking about hope,
-
solar panels, wind power, circular economy, and so on,
-
but I'm not going to do that.
-
We've had 30 years of pep-talking and selling positive ideas.
-
And I'm sorry, but it doesn't work.
-
Because if it would have,
-
the emissions would have gone down by now.
-
They haven't.
-
And yes, we do need hope,
-
of course we do.
-
But the one thing we need more than hope is action.
-
Once we start to act, hope is everywhere.
-
So instead of looking for hope,
-
look for action.
-
Then, and only then, hope will come.
-
Today, we use 100 million barrels of oil every single day.
-
There are no politics to change that.
-
There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground.
-
So we can't save the world by playing by the rules,
-
because the rules have to be changed.
-
Everything needs to change --
-
and it has to start today.
-
Thank you.