Return to Rio

An encounter with Severn Cullis Suzuki

In 1992, Severn Suzuki, at the age of 12, gave a group of United Nations delegates a fervent and sincere tongue-lashing. Suzuki, on behalf of the Environmental Children’s Organisation (ECO), a group she founded, gave a nearly seven-minute speech, a child’s plea for survival – not just of humans but of all species – demanding governments and all adults to take steps to reverse the damage that was being done to the environment. She finished by telling the quiet conference room packed with delegates and various heads of states: “My father always says, ‘You are what you do, not what you say.’ Well, what you do makes me cry at night.” As she walked from the podium, a rousing ovation ensued. The numerous YouTube videos of her speech have received many millions of hits and been translated in several languages.

Suzuki continued her eco-crusade by speaking and writing about the interconnection between culture and environment, and the need for people to act with the environment in mind. At Yale University, she co-founded the Skyfish Project, an internet-based think tank that encouraged her generation to adopt a sustainable lifestyle.

Today, 32-year-old Severn, an environmental activist, speaker, television host, author, and a mother of two continues to campaign for Earth.

“Today I’m no longer a child, but I’m worried about what kind of environment my children will grow up in. 20 years since Rio, I have learned that addressing our leaders is not enough. As Gandhi said many years ago, “We must become the change we want to see.” I know change is possible, because I am changing, still figuring out what I think. I am still deciding how to live my life. The challenges are great, but if we accept individual responsibility and make sustainable choices, we will rise to the challenges, and we will become part of the positive tide of change.”

It was a pleasure meeting Severn, whom I greatly admire, in Rio during the UN Earth Summit in June 2012, and getting to talk to her. It was fascinating to see her hopeful albeit the failed dialogue at the summit. She expressed her disappointment in the lack of leadership in developed countries like Canada and US. “It is appalling. But we are currently in the midst of global flux and change of the economies and power dynamics of the world,” she said.

She was only 12 but it is still moving to see her in her famous speech in which she said, “If you don’t know how to fix it, please, stop breaking it.” Some 20 years later, assessing the progress up till now, she had this to say:

“On the eve of the Earth Summit 2012, a report came out in the scientific journal Nature that said that we humans are pushing for a potential state shift of our global ecosystem. We are attacking the planet’s systems in so many ways, on so many levels, that we may push it towards a tipping point that could put us in a different climate state that would be irreversible. We are in a desperate situation today, 20 years after Rio ‘92.”

When it comes to curtailing carbon emissions, especially by the most industrialised nations fighting tooth and nail to preserve the status quo, and capitalists who are looking for new markets, there isn’t enough progress with regards to saving the environment. In Severn’s opinion it was more about developing a new culture of sustainable markets shifting from “greed economy” to “green economy”.

The UN Earth Summit inviting various world leaders and claiming to be the biggest conference in world’s history ended with nothing but a useless document known as “The Future We Want”. Going through the details of the document I must say, it was just the same old rhetoric. The document comprised of details stressing on the future we bought, not the one we want. We have a serious problem with the intersection between governance and corporate power and greed. Our highest level leaders on the planet are not leading for the good of humanity and the life support ecosystems that support us.

Listening to Severn after so many years, she still sounded positive about change. According to her there are many solutions underway. But they are dwarfed by the challenges. “It is eerie to watch the speech I gave in Rio in 1992, because everything is still relevant today,” she said to me on the sidelines of the summit.