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.
Interpretation
The quote expresses concern that children are becoming disconnected from nature, leading to a lack of appreciation for the environment.
Severn Cullis-Suzuki highlights the importance of outdoor experiences for children in developing a connection with the natural world. As fewer kids spend time in nature, there is a risk that future generations will be less inclined to value and protect the environment, which is crucial for sustainability and ecological preservation.
In practice
In a speech about environmental conservation, this quote can emphasize the need for outdoor education.
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 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.
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.
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.
At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzzz that hummed along my skin. I watched their wings shining like bits of chrome in the dark and felt the longing build in my chest. The way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for the feel of the wind, split my heart down its seam.
We are extremely uncomfortable with the spiritual aspects of gardening, and yet most people feel it in some form or other, even if it's a sense of connection to the greater world on a beautiful day.
By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited... The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species and ecosystem is delayed. That means that even when you turn virtuous, things are actually going to get worse for quite a while.
I think global warming is the gravest threat. With global warming, it's the product of a war between old energy - between the carbon cronies, who, by the way, could not stay in business in a true free market capitalism.
People are beginning to realize that we need to live in accordance with the law of ecology, the law of finite resources, and if we don't, we're going to go extinct.
The recent upsurge of public concern over environmental questions reflects a belated recognition that man has been too cavalier in his relations with nature. Unless we arrest the depredations that have been inflicted so carelessly on our natural systems-which exist in an intricate set of balances-we face the prospect of ecological disaster.
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