Greenville Massive - What A Wonderful Place lyrics

Hello, I’m Severn Suzuki speaking for E.C.O.
The Environmental Children’s Organisation

We are a group of twelve and thirteen-year-olds trying to make a difference
Vanessa Suttie, Morgan Geisler, Michelle Quigg and me

We've raised all the money to come here ourselves

To come five thousand miles to tell you adults you must change your ways
Coming up here today, I have no hidden agenda
I am fighting for my future

Losing my future is not like losing an election or a few points on the stock market

I am here to speak for all generations to come
I am here to speak-speak on behalf of the starving children around the world whose cries go unheard
I am here to speak for the countless animals dying across this planet, because they have nowhere left to go


I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of the holes in the ozone
I am afraid to breathe the air because I don’t know what chemicals are in it


I used to go in
I used to go fishing in Vancouver, my home, with my dad
Until just a few years ago we found the fish full of cancers
And now we hear of animals and plants going exinct
Every day
Vanishing forever

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

Did you have to worry about these things when you were my age?

All this is happening before our eyes and yet we act as if we have all the time we want and all the solutions
I’m only a child and I don’t have all the solutions
But I know, I want you to realise, neither do you!
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!

Here, you may be delegates of your governments
Business people
Organisers
Reporters or poiticians

But really
You are mothers and fathers
Sisters and brothers
Aunts and uncles
And all of you are somebody’s child

I’m only a child yet I know we are all part of a family
Five billion strong
In fact
30 million species strong
And borders and governments will never change that

I’m only a child yet I know we are all in this together
And should act as one single world towards one single goal

In my anger, I am not blind
And in my fear, I am not afraid telling the world how I feel

In my country, we make so much waste
We buy and throw away
Buy and throw away [2x]
And yet northern countries will not share with the needy
Even when we have more than enough, we are afraid to lose some of our wealth, afraid to share

In Canada, we live the privileged life, with plenty of food, water and shelter
We have watches, bicycles, computers and television sets

Well this could go on for two days

Two days ago here in Brazil
We were shocked when we spent time with some children living on the streets.
And this is what one child told us
I wish I was rich and if I were
I would give all the street children food, clothes, medicine, shelter and love and affection

If a child on the street who has nothing
Is willing to share
Why are we who have everyting still so greedy?
(still so greedy)

I can’t stop thinking that these children are my age
That it makes a tremendous difference where you are born
That I could be one of those children living in the Favellas of Rio
I could be a child starving in Somalia
A victim of war in the Middle East
Or a beggar in India

I’m only a child yet I know if all the money spent on war was spent on and finding environmental answers, ending poverty, finding treaties
What a wonderful place this earth would be