Climate needs us to change to improve our children's futures

It is time to join with our kids to demand better for our planet, and heed warning that we only have 12 years to limit global warming to moderate levels.

We need to take action to ensure we don't hand over a planet plagued with problems to our children. Picture: iStock

LAST week, Friday, March 15, my daughter and I joined climate change activists in a worldwide strike for climate change.

In joining events such as these, our children are showing they are tired of being the "voiceless future of humanity”.

They have a voice, and no they can't vote yet, but they are citizens of the world and they are making their voices heard on issues of climate change.

Protesting on every continent, children around the world learned about activism and took a day away from school to demand stronger action on climate change from their governments.

As I wrote to my daughter's principal explaining her absence from school, I was hit by the reality of this situation for her and my future grandchildren.

I felt the fear that 16-year-old Greta Thunberg from Sweden, who inspired this event, described in her Davos Speech: "I don't want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.”

With an Australian election looming, I join with these young people and call for politicians to #stopAdani and to aggressively cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Adani's coal mine will fuel global warming and permanently damage our water systems. I am tired of the 'economy' being labelled as the only driver for political decision-making. When will governments realise it is not a choice between the economy and the environment?

It is time to join with our kids and demand something better.

It is time to demand that governments ensure decisions made about our energy, water and natural resources are sustainable for generations into the future.

The ancient Iroquois philosophy informing the Seventh Generation Principle, that the decisions we make should result in a sustainable world "seven generations into the future”, shouldn't feel like a fantasy.

We need to heed the warnings contained in last year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on the impacts of global warming - a report focused on 6000 scientific publications, 133 authors and reviewed by 1000 scientists, that outlines we have only 12 years to limit global warming to moderate levels.

We have only 12 years to limit devastating worldwide warming.

Unprecedented changes and action must be taken now.

These must be taken now so our children can live in hope rather than fear.

Originally published as Climate needs us to change to improve our children's futures