Aren't You Ashamed?

Author's Note: I know this isn't an actual story, it's more like a speech and explanation. But it's told like a 'story'. But I also hope this triggers people that are not interested to also take some action! Hope you like it!

I breathed the half-polluted air into my lungs, half coughing it out. I strode out, onto the stage, leaving my paper behind and put on a brave face. Adjusting the microphone to my height and towards my lips. I looked out at the men and woman, dressed in black suits, sitting in the crowd, glaring at me at the same time, watching in anticipation.

“Hi!”, I began, then brushed the hair out of my eyes, trying to make eye contact. The whispers have already started.

“As you can see, I’m here, at the microphone. I’ve made it so far, from being a normal high-school girl that drew posters saying, ‘save the planet’ to here.”, I continued, becoming more confident.

“Yes, you may have heard of me. I’m Lisa Mirrow, who talks at meetings, conferences, stages etc. So now that I’m right in front of you, I hope you can listen to me, at least listen and… I hope I don’t bore you with my speech. You all know what climate change is… You hear it everywhere, but I bet you never thought of taking it within you and take some action. You all, right here in the audience, seem like responsible adults, probably you even have children and grandchildren. But to me, you don’t look like responsible adults, you know why, it’s because of your lack of responsibility to secure the future of our future generations and protect this beautiful earth which day by day, you are reducing to an ugly dumpster. You know, the earth was here, way before us. It gave us food, shelter, land, space, everything… but us? We weren’t satisfied with course, and that is because humans have a nature of being greedy and selfish that they take more than what is needed which definitely includes you and me.”, I continued my speech, my voice was clear and sharp, I could feel the words simply spilling out of my mouth in rhythm and flow as I was standing tall and proud in confidence.

“We built numerous buildings, schools, towers, monuments, skyscrapers, houses and museums, but it seems as if we forgot all about our planet. Of course, It’s way to late to get rid of all of this but you can still sustain it with nature. We preserve paintings, artifacts and such important things that symbolise our history, but have you ever thought of preserving nature that was here before us? You know, our earth is still going to exist, even after our human race is wiped out. Our only leftovers and trace that will be left on this planet, are polluted grey air, plastic flooding the ocean, an oil spilt land, smoke pissing out of broken vehicles, the corpses of many wildlife floating around and the land we strived on, flooded with murky seawater. So now that you have an image of the future, try and start acting like real adults. I know you won’t be satisfied with this, so I’ll continue.”, I say, clearing my throat.

“You know, I wonder if you ever thought about those endangered species of animals out there… After all, you couldn’t care any less about the earth so why would you care about the animals. Obviously, we think they have no feeling so that we can treat them like toys and rubbish. Yeah, I get it, we don’t understand the meaning of them, but they are balancing this place! Humans are meant to be the protector of nature, but it seems like we are the destroyers. We are the only beings that can talk, and we are the most intelligent but to me, it looks like the cruellest.”, I point my finger out and looked at the audience seriously.

“We are Homo Sapiens, in the literal meaning, Wise Man. Yeah, I know we are proud of that. After all, we built computers, robots, cars and smartwatches! But do you think then it’s going to help the environment other than destroying it? We are wise, only to help the environment. We found atoms, and those very atoms we used, to destroy things! Are you all seriously proud of yourselves? We waged great wars like World War 1 and World War 2 and in the process, invented planes but we also destroyed so much of land! We created motorcycles, trains, cars, buses and trams, but the result of them is a polluted planet. Ok, at least think of it this way… People will die from lung cancer and maybe even you! Everything we create and invent is only resulting in a polluted planet! We know there’s solar energy, we know coal is running out, we know fossil fuels are clogging the air in Carbon Dioxide, we also know there are replaceable to these and we even know about global warming! But we still continue to do nothing about it!”, I huffed, my speech was becoming like a mother preaching her child to stop doing something so irresponsible.

“Here’s the most important truth… WE ARE AT THE BEGINNING OF A MASS EXTINCTION! But I still don’t think you understand that, because people talked and raised awareness to save our earth from this but to me… All you people over here today, don’t understand that and if you are listening to this but still won’t act, then…”, I checked my watch and looked up.

“You’ve wasted a whole 30 minutes, listening to this speech which you most likely consider useless anyways.”

“I really am sick of all of you people and the world leaders out there because no matter how much we people tell you, I don’t think you really care. A leader is meant to take people to good, but it turns out you are just destroying us all. So, put aside your useless politics since it’s polluted as well and save the planet! Us future generations shall never forgive you for these gruesome and horrible mistakes… Just remember one thing, we are at the beginning of a mass extinction! Thank you…”, I say, then left the microphone standing silently.