Dear Government (or whomever it may concern),
Please. I beg. She begs. He begs. Greg from work begs. Pat from school begs. Johnny from Sainsbury’s checkout begs. We all beg. On behalf of our planet, we beg. You wouldn’t smash up your television screen or destroy your furniture or wreck your grand piano. Just for your plastic bag or your crisp packet or your McDonald’s straw. This means that you definitely wouldn’t watch your world rapidly die and suffer under your watch. Just for your children. Your grandchildren. Your great-grandchildren and all the future generations to come. But you do. You don’t care if in the future, children won’t be able to swim in the sea or climb trees or even breathe without wearing a dreadful mask. You don’t care if global warming is killing bears, fish, birds, lizards, insects, big cats, cattle, frogs. Humans. Humans die due to extreme weather conditions, landslides, floods and droughts. You just watch and announce that we need to stop climate change while you are in your mansion, stinking rich from deforestation and the mass production of plastic. People all over the world fight for our planet and the plants, animals and humans within it. But not enough people. Animals can’t help with climate change. Animals can’t stop driving cars which pollute the air. Animals can’t stop launching rockets into the sky, wasting materials and sending junk into the atmosphere, and around it. Animals can’t stop driving noisy speedboats and jet skis and cruise ships which send oil into our oceans and mess with whale calls. Even if they could, why should they? They didn’t start this, we did. It’s our responsibility to do something before it’s too late and you need to make sure that happens. Stop fussing on tiny problems such as Brexit, start focusing on the more important things in life. That thing is life.
Lilli Hearsey, 11