World, It’s Time to Stand Up. NOW!

Europe group.
Week 2: “We have no more time. What we can do for save the Earth when politics doesn’t react?”

World, It’s Time to Stand Up. NOW!

Like Marshall McLuhan said: «There are no passengers on the spaceship Earth. We are all members of the crew. » That sentence is extremely explicative about our responsibilities against the planet because it is our home and we have only this one. If we continue destroying it (e.g. if we continue pollute the land, seas and air or cutting down the forests and continue producing too much non-recyclable wastes etc…), we will have only one possible future: Extinction.

Maybe for many of you, this may seem an extreme affirmation. In the end, the planet survived until now and you will be indulging in the idea that somehow all will fix, as always. I’m sorry to delude you, but no, this is not an exaggeration. If the global temperature rises a +3°C or +4°C, the planet’s climate and all life will change dramatically. As IPCC and experts say, desertification, floods, sea rising, resource wars, starvation and mass migrations, are some of the consequences that will befall us before 2100.

Now, some of you may think, “What can we do to save our planet and ourselves?”

It’s not an easy question to answer, but in my opinion, we have to stop thinking some things:
Stop blaming politics if they don’t act, because they are the ones we voted. Their actions aren’t only their fault, but also ours. We should stop thinking that if we do eco-friendly actions (like recycling, wasting less energy or water, etc…) is just a drop in the ocean. If we act, it’s more like a drop that falls in the desert; so many drops can make a storm strong enough to restore the thirsty land. Finally yet importantly, we have to stand up and unite our voices to show the world governments that the Earth is screaming from suffering and we have to take note of this.

There is a positive aspect in all that: Global public opinion started uniting their voices, started acting so they could be heard and people all over the world started going in the streets asking the leaders to save the planet. For example, the initiative “Earth Hour” (the symbolic action to shut down the lights for one hour, organized by WWF) in 2014, reached almost one billion people in 162 nations and with events in almost 7.000 cities all over the world. The people there, were united by the desire to do something small to show their care for the environment. Don’t forget the “People’s Climate March” that happened on Sunday 21 September 2014. That was one of the biggest environmentalist movements in the history, with almost 3.000 marches in the main cities of the world. That was done to ask to the world leaders (who were having a meeting for the extraordinary climate summit, hosted in the U.N. Head Quarters in New York) to be brave and to do something concrete for the planet (even after the failures of the last climate summits). Or also the “Plant-for-the-Planet” initiative started by a German nine years old boy, Felix Finkbeiner, with the aim to raise awareness amongst children and adults about the issues of climate change and global justice. To do it, he started planting trees, a symbolic action to reduce the climate warming and by 2011 they reached the 1 million trees planted and that now is active in more than 93 countries.

We have to stand up, all world people has to stand up, we have to switch to a more sustainable and green life now or it will be too late. Every little action counts, all together they will make the difference and future generations will thank us for being so brave to have gain the volition to create a new green deal.

If I didn’t convince you about how much important our little actions are, just consider that: Italy had a really random norm about renewable energies subsides. Still thanks to all the people who decided to put solar panels on their roofs and to the little energetic companies that decided to invest in geothermal, biomass and wind farms, we were able to increase the renewable energy production from 2% in 2000 to 45% in August 2014.

Maybe my words haven’t convinced any of you, but if only one of you will be able to see the world in a different way and act in a different way from now, I’ll know to had explained well what is going on. We have a great power for save our planet, we have to be brave and see and act in the long term, not only in the little term as usual. We have to stand up, and we have to do it now before will be too late because climate changes are real and are under our eyes every day.

By F.P., Italy

20 years old