By NextGen
•
20 Nov, 2020
After having lived on our planet for more than two decades, I have experienced the climate changing rapidly and the environment converting into a space that is filled with sorrow and distress. Mass consumerism, single-use plastics, deforestation, animal extinction and global warming, all modern worries that has forced me to watch and listen to the planet’s cry for help. Melting ice caps, palm oil plantations, and having an ocean filled with more plastics than it has fish. Is this the world I want to live in? No, it is not. How can I just sit here and watch as the planet is slowly dying? How can I accept that as if it is nothing? Well, I do not accept it.This has to change now. Actually, it had to change yesterday, even though the majority of the people decided to look the other way. Earth has always been there for us, in good times and in bad. We need to return the favour. At least, I intend to. Irrational behaviour is no longer an option, we do not have a spare Earth. After all, we are just visitors on this planet. Even if I wanted to, I could not tell you the exact moment I became aware of the current problems we are facing concerning climate change, plastic pollution, and deforestation. I could not even tell you the exact day I started to use less plastic or become aware of my surroundings. What I do know is that it is part of everyday life. Every day you learn more, you discover more, and you are more curious about what is happening to our planet. I always waited for someone to take steps towards change, to make decisions for me, to tell me what is right and what is wrong. However, that is not how it works. You need to want to change, you need to want to take better care of your planet, of nature. You need to start to understand that when you ask yourself, who am I doing it for? What am I changing in the world? Does it even matter? That it is better to start with small changes with many, how imperfect they might be, than to do nothing. Because no matter how much you think to yourself that it is useless to recycle, to clean your neighborhood, to start using less plastic or sign petitions, these small changes can have a significant impact on mother nature, on your planet. Maybe the tiny piece of plastic, or the cigarette butt you picked up, stopped a bird from getting sick, it even prevented to further pollute YOUR home. This is why it means so much to be an ambassador of the Next Generation. Because we, together, can reverse the damage that has been done to our planet. We can choose a better living condition not only for ourselves but for every living, breathing creature. Nature is not the one that needs us, it is us that need nature. Being an ambassador of the Next Generation means that I can stand up for the ones that can’t, it means I can address the problem as for the ones who don’t, and it means I can preserve our planet as for the ones who won’t. This is my cry for help. Let’s remove the glitch. Together.