Hello, my name is Anthony and I am a sixteen-year-old boy. Although I am young, I am not naive. I think about my future a lot, and the way the world is going at the moment with its excessive carbon emissions and the large farming sector. I am very worried about the direction we are all going in. But luckily there is a way to prevent the horrible things we are heading towards. And that is being an environmental activist.
I have chosen this lifestyle and I am writing this to tell you why.
Because I am sixteen, and today’s medicine has allowed us to live long lives, I hopefully will have a lot of time left on the planet, which means a healthy planet is probably the most important thing for me in order to live a good life. To do this I need to help protect the earth from anything harmful, which would ruin my chances of a fruitful, amazing, pollution-free life. Not only that, but animals and other generations of humans would also be affected. Polar bears, orangutans, and many more animals will eventually become extinct by the environmental wrongdoings of humans. The weather is getting more extreme these past few years, and natural disasters are getting more and more likely every year, and getting worse too. Our actions will heavily determine the future for generations to come, and I want all humans to experience the beauty of this world, and not a world of burning hell.
My mam always taught me basic stewardship. I am lucky to have such a caring parent; she is a real inspiration to me. I am an animal lover and have always wanted a pet. From a very young age, I found myself feeding honey to worn out bumblebees, making ants nests, and placing spiders safely outside when they put fear in my little sister.
When I was a bit older and moved to a new house, I dogshared with my elderly neighbour, and the cat across the road adopted me as her own. Because of them, my love and understanding for animals had grown even more. So, I think, a part of me is heavily influenced with the protection of animals because of my upbringing and experiences, which is why being an activist is the best way to helping animals keep their natural habitat.
As I progressed through life, I started becoming more and more aware of the world I live in. I became very interested in geography and science. The beautiful landscapes of our planet have left me awestruck, and the intricate cycles of life are something to be respected. But as I learned more about the world we lived in, I discovered how cruel humans can be to our only home, how they can hurt and ruin our ecosystems. Pollution, deforestation, poaching, overfishing, ransacking our resources and carbon emissions, to name a few. It shocked and appalled me. I couldn’t believe humans were willingly doing this to the earth. I wanted to stop what they were doing but I understood that one kid would not stop what these industry-driven people were doing.
After this realisation, I discovered activists. I was so happy to find other people who cared just as much about the world as I do. They help with the protection of our environment and address important issues that our governments are ignoring. Without these activists, corrupt people would have nothing to stop them from destroying what we have left of our planet. I was immensely interested because I really wanted to join the cause. And by absolute luck, I got the chance to join Youth for Sustainable Development at ECO-UNESCO. It is an environmental-based group of like-minded teenagers. It helped me express my love for the environment and all life that coexists together.
This is as far as I have got in my journey as a young environmentalist so far. I can say that it has changed my life for the better. I am hopeful for the future and want to make other generations hopeful too. I am so glad that I decided to live a sustainable life, so that I can guarantee a future for my planet.
