I am only a child. Yet I know that if all the money spent on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environmental answers, what a wonderful place this would be.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the need to redirect resources from war to addressing poverty and environmental issues.
Severn Cullis-Suzuki's quote emphasizes the stark contrast between the wealth allocated to warfare and the potential positive impact that could be achieved by investing those resources into solving global challenges such as poverty and environmental degradation. It is a call for a shift in priorities, advocating for peace and sustainability over conflict, and envisions a transformed world that could result from such a significant change in focus.
In practice
Use this quote during a talk on the importance of social justice initiatives.
In school you teach us not to fight with others, to work things out, to respect others, to clean up our mess, not to hurt other creatures, to share, not be greedy. Then why do you go out and do the things you tell us not to do? You grownups say you love us, but I challenge you, please, to make your actions reflect your words.
I was at Earth Summit in Rio 20 years ago... I was only 12 years old. And when I was speaking to the U.N. I was fighting for my future.
In my life, I have dreamt of seeing the great herds of wild animals, jungles and rainforests full of birds and butterflies, but now I wonder if they will even exist for my children to see.
I worry that more and more kids my age are growing up without experiencing the outdoors, which means that fewer will care about the natural world.
Fragmentation is a big part of the problem. You have a city where trash is taken away from the curb every week, and you don't see it any more, and you don't have any sense of where water comes from. So there's no sense of responsibility and accountability and there's also no sense of empowerment for our actions.
Gender equality will only be reached if we are able to empower women.
Up until 1920, women couldn't vote. Until 1974, married women couldn't get their own credit cards or, in some cases, their own loans. Basically, the husband's professional, social, and economic identity covered the individual identity of the wife.
To make the revolution in the United States is a slow day by day job that requires patience and discipline. It is the only way to make it. . . . All I know is that despite the fact that I am one of the people who benefit from a capitalist society, I find that any system which exploits other people cannot and should not exist.
Now it is the least developed world who are not responsible for this climate change phenomenon that bore the brunt of climate change consequences so it is morally and politically correct that the developed world who made this climate change be responsible by providing financial support and technological support to these people.
What we want to be is something completely new. There is no physical analog for what Amazon.com is becoming.
Movements have narratives. They tell stories, because they are not just about rearranging economics and politics. They also rearrange meaning. And they're not just about redistributing the goods. They're about figuring out what is good.
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