Please

Please

When I was younger, the adults in my life told me I could be anything. A doctor, astronaut, ballerina or painter. They said that the world was mine for the taking when I grew up.

But now I’m 16.

And I don’t think I’m going to be able to see the world like my parents do.

Not without knowing that my friends or myself could walk out of the house and down the street but never make it home alive or untainted. Each time we do, one headphone out, keys between fingers, walk fast, keep your eyes alert for any sort of movement, take self defense classes because it is your responsibility not to get raped.

Not without knowing that the food and clothes and material processions I buy are killing the world I call home, destroying it bit by bit. Each time I buy something I have to remind myself that because the people in power seem to think having money will save them from rising ocean levels or super diseases or heightened chances of natural disaster or people deciding that injections designed for their safety cause a genetic disease.

The world my parents and my grand parents and my great grand parents were born into is dying. It is fucking dying. The politicians and ceos and oil barons over 60 won't live to see it, but you are leaving a steaming pile of shit for us to inherit.

and you just don't seem to get it.

We will live here, hopefully for a lot longer

We will probably give birth to and raise children here, but they won't know lush forests or majestic glaciers or stunning ocean veiws

They will know heat, death, drowning and diseases

Dear polictian who doesn't think the climate crisis is real, please think with your brain instead of your wallet

Money doesn't matter anymore when the world is crumbling around you. The sacred bill of green will not stop ice caps melting, or frozen methane reserves bursting into the atmosphere, or wildfires burning through entire states.

It isn't money or bust

It's money and power or life and longevity

Don't pay people into silence

Build a better world and please stop being so selfish

We only have about 12 years to change things

Please, I'm not yelling anymore I'm begging

I want to see the future

If I'm insanely lucky, I might even get a glimpse at the next century

Please, just please

this feels appropriate

“Stand up for what you believe in even if you are standing alone.”

— Sophie Scholl

Isn’t It so sad to see the world going to shit?

It’s like children arguing over an ice cream

They squabble and fight, shout and threaten

But none seem to have noticed the ice cream melting

I made a chart.

no bro

you really don’t