Climate South East AGM Speech
Patrick Kennedy
About half of everything going on inside this banana is also
going on within you. As a fact, that’s quite astounding. What’s
even more astounding is that the pair of you, you and this humble
banana, have spent almost every moment of existence not
existing. The universe had been around for almost fourteen
billion years before, inexplicably, you both turned up. Even more
bizarrely, out of everywhere possible, you have both appeared on
a small floating rock spinning to itself around an insignificant
star in an almost insignificant galaxy. Starkly, if galaxies were frozen peas, the 140 billion of them that we can see
would overflow from the Albert Hall. Besides vast tracts of empty existence within each pea, there are several
billion other small floating rocks. Yet you – and the banana – are on this one.
Just in case you were wondering, this is a fantastic small floating rock. It is, as far as we can tell, the sole outpost of
this quaint thing that we call life. Of our fellow quaint things we have discovered about 1.5 million. Yet in all
likelihood, we’re sharing this rock with tens to hundreds of millions of species. Species that can spend hours deep
in the huge, oceanic puddles (literally!) that cover the rock. Species that can have learnt how to fly, how to run,
how to hunt, how to live. And as if all this wasn’t astounding enough, about half of all the biodiversity on this rock
is confined to a mere 1.4% of its area.
In short, we’re in a rather special frozen pea.
You do however (and I assure you I am getting to the point) have one advantage over the banana. You are part of
the one species that has begun to understand its rock. Take a moment to think just how lucky we are. But there is
one fact that is tremendously unique, but not quite so great. Frankly, the only species to have understood its world
is the same species that seems determined to destroy it. As Bill Bryson puts if far more eloquently, we’re in the
strange position of being both life’s best hope and it’s worst nightmare.
And here’s the point: we’ve gone so far down that path that we’re now changing the very rock on which we stand.
Earth is now in the human eon.
Now that we’re all looking at bananas and frozen peas in hopefully a new-found light, I tell you a bit about who I
am, why climate change is key to my generation, and lastly, why my generation is key to climate change.
Right, so who am I?
Last year, DEFRA selected nine teenagers, each one representing a different region. The idea was that each would
get out there and communicate climate change to other teenagers. This mission has taken us to schools,
communities, businesses, Downing Street, the Hague, the world’s largest offshore wind-farm, television, blogs and
Romania. I want to suggest that the climate movement is not just another geography video, and not just something
fundamental to life on Earth either, but perhaps something exciting.
So, onwards: climate change and my generation...
If you took an average school-class, you could expect a scattering of pupils to be vaguely concerned about climate
change. Perhaps a few make sure they always turn off lights, and usually cycle to school. But they’re in a definite
minority. At the moment, there is no sense of an issue, no sense of urgency. Yet this age-group accounts for almost
12 million people in the UK alone. That’s 20% of our population. I think that, if any headway is to be made, we’ve
got to them on board.
These 12 million have a right to a living world. And as the voices of the future, they must also be voices of the
present. My generation might be about to grow up into a world almost unimaginable. Already, our responsibility
towards Earth is reaching a crescendo. In a world where 50,000 species slip irrevocably extinct in a single year,
where a football pitch of tropical forest vanishes every two seconds, we need to be asking the difficult questions.
From now on, human actions must no longer be judged just by economic sense, but by ecological sense.
Mobilising the 12 million is my ideal, my dream. But I do believe that perhaps it’s possible. What it will require I
don’t know, but I do know that teenagers and children are often brilliantly open-minded, which is one of the most
encouraging facts out there. Getting the word out is not easy, as I’m sure you know. I don’t whether you’ve
noticed, but strange things happen. There is currently a school in Mexico that is decorated with posters from my
website, and which used a film I made in a lesson. I don’t know about globalisation, but that’s not a bad start.
Actually, I do have another drive about climate change, and that is this: climate change is an issue that could drive
a quarter of all the species we have on Earth to extinction. It could cause desperately tragic wars in some of the
most shattered places on the planet. It could take world poverty onto a level we’ve never seen before, and it could
force 200 million people to become refugees. Every moment that the South East persists in burning fossil fuels, we
assume more and more responsibility for the fate of this planet. When we drive to the shops, we’re saying that my
convenience is more important than the survival of millions, across species. Ignorance is no longer an excuse.
However, we must be doing something right. The very words we use to describe our species are loaded with
optimism.
‘Humanity’ is also ‘compassion’
‘Homo sapiens’ – ‘wise people’
‘Civilised’ – ‘moral’
We even come from a tradition of being good at things...
‘Homo habilis’ – ‘skilful person’
‘Homo ergaster’ – ‘working man’
And my personal favourite....
‘Homo floresiensis’ – ‘Hobbit’
With names like these, we must have something going for us.
Frankly, humans can stand up to climate change. The stakes literally could not be higher.
To put that into another perspective: there’s a small, unassuming, three-eyed reptile that lives in New Zealand. It
has been on this planet for almost 225 million years. It lives in burrows with birds, and occasionally eats its chicks.
It lives for around a century, and will change colour throughout its life. It is, in short, a very bizarre animal.
Possibly too bizarre: above a certain temperature in the nest, all offspring will be born male. As temperatures rise,
we’re causing the slow-motion extinction of a truly ancient animal. I think humans have to use their capacity to go
beyond their own kind, and to realise that they are responsible for the fall of such animals, who are, in effect, our
only travelling companions and close relatives in the empty vastness of the universe. Can we really let them go?
Has climate change become far more of a moral issue than a political or merely scientific one?
I think it has.
Unfortunately, time is not on our side. 2015 will probably be a defining moment in the battle against climate
change. We might have just seven years left in which to peak emissions. After 2015, we must be declining. If we
fail to do that, we risk a 2*C rise in temperature, after which climate change could spiral out of control.
It’s dangerously easy to feel despondent. But if we all think we're too small to be any meaningful part of the
solution (and there very much is a solution), then we're not going to get anywhere. When one individual objects to
driving, flying, switches off the lights, refuses standby, cuts down on meat and gets on a bike, they are part of a
worldwide war effort. And yes, I do think we're at war. And it's a war we can win.
This is actually a tremendously exciting fact. We've achieved the kind of communal effort necessary before. Take
the mere five years in which we changed for the Second World War. And as if this wasn't encouragement enough,
this time, the sacrifices we're being asked to made look tiny and simple compared to the sacrifices made by those in
the '40s. This is a crisis we know we can challenge.
Before I wrap up and brutally murder this banana, I thought I’d end on a glance towards the future.
STANDING UP TO CLIMATE CHANGE MAY BE THE BRAVEST AND MOST INFLUENTIAL DECISION
IN THE HISTORY OF OUR WORLD: CHOOSING NOT TO FORSAKE OUR FELLOW SPECIES,
CHOOSING TO HELP THE WORLD’S POOREST PEOPLE, CHOOSING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
We have the power
Let’s use it.