There’s something I would like to talk about.
Our relationship with nature is broken.
But relationships can change.
The climate crisis, ecological crisis and health crisis,
they are all interlinked.
We no longer see the links between them,
we only see this far.
So what will we do?
My name is Greta Thunberg,
and I would like to connect the dots,
because let’s face it,
if we don’t change,
we are f***ed.
Millions have died from COVID-19
Zika, Ebola, Swine flu, Mad Cow Disease,
West Nile Fever, Covid-19,
SARS, MERS, HIV-AIDS.
Up to 75% of all new diseases come from other animals.
Because of the way we farm and treat nature,
cutting down forests and destroying habitats,
we are creating the perfect conditions for diseases to spill over
from one animal to another, and to us.
The next pandemic could be much, much worse.
But we can change.
83% of the world’s agricultural land is used to feed livestock.
Yet livestock only provide 18% of our calories.
The way we make food;
raising animals to eat,
clearing land to grow food to feed those animals.
If we continue we will run out of land and food.
It just doesn’t make sense.
The land requirements of meat and dairy production are equivalent
to an area the size of North and South America combined.
From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.
We have industrialised life on earth.
If we keep making food the way we do,
we will also destroy the habitats
of most of the wild plants and animals
driving countless species to extinction.
This really sucks for us too.
They are our life supporting system.
If we lose them, we will be lost too.
In the words of the United Nations.
Secretary General António Guterres;
“For too long we have been waging a senseless
and suicidal war on nature".
And what about the climate?
We know that we need to drastically reduce our emissions
starting now.
When we think about the villains of the climate crisis
of course we picture fossil fuel companies.
But agriculture and land use together
are about ¼ of our emissions.
This is huge!
It doesn’t have to be like this.
If we change towards a plant-based diet
we could save up to 8 billion tonnes of CO2, every single year.
We could feed ourselves on much less land.
And nature could recover.
Pandemics, loss of biodiversity, climate disruption,
acidification of oceans, inequality, loss of fertile topsoil.
These are all just symptoms.
What they all come down to is
the way we treat nature,
the way we value nature.
We need a system change.
But we can fix this.
Because we are part of nature;
when we protect nature, we are nature protecting itself.
And finally, the animals.
Every year we kill more than 60 billion animals,
excluding fish, whose numbers are so great
that we only measure their lives by weight.
What about their thoughts and feelings?
Some animals plan for the future,
forge friendships that last for decades.
They play, they help each other.
They show signs of what we call empathy.
But 70% of the animals we farm live inside factories.
In the United States that number is 99%.
Their lives are short and terrible.
How will we be judged?
It is heartbreaking to know all this
but it is also our opportunity.
We know what we can do
We can change...
Some of us have lots of choices,
while some have none at all.
Those with the most power have the most responsibility,
and most of us can do something.
So...
What will you do?