Severn Cullis-Suzuki

“You don't know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer. You don't know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream. You don't know how to bring back an animal now extinct. And you can't bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert. If you don't know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!”

“I really have a passion for the sea, so I think it's important that whatever I do, I want to be near the sea.”

“Real environmental change depends on us. We can't wait for our leaders. We have to focus on what our own responsibilities are and how we can make the change happen.”

“I don't want to pretend that I am a little David Suzuki, because I am not. I'm really different. I have different issues. I'm more interested in the social aspect of environmental issues.”

“Look at how lucky white people are compared to black people, who have suffered so much just because of their skin color, and then there are native people, who were the first people of this country and have suffered so much just because some newcomers came over and said 'hey this looks like a nice place to set up camp, just hand it over to us.'”

“We find ourselves heading fully into an era of mass extinction.”

“Well, I think it's pretty incredible watching Greta Thunberg in action.”

“There isn't a line that you can draw between the air and your body. We are the environment.”

“When we look as a society, we've really lost the connection between our actions and the future.”

“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.”

“It's always been young people at the forefront of any revolution.”

“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.”

“Social media has democratised platforms of expression so much - now a child can have a very loud voice.”

“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.”

“Clean air and clean ocean, you can't translate that into money if you look at the cost to health, cost to fishery industry.”

“I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of the holes in our ozone, I am afraid to breathe the air because I don't know what chemicals are in it.”

“I am called an environmentalist a lot. But I don't necessarily identify with that word specifically, because of the compartmentalization of the so-called environmental movement.”

“The end times are here. And that is a lot, so that is why we have to do our best to stop it.”

“At nine, I started catching fish in Vancouver full of tumours from toxins.”