H
i everyone! I’m Tiki the Penguin. My website is specially for kids. Did you know I’m the first penguin anywhere to make a website. Just as well that I’m a cheerful sort of penguin because right now, there’s a lot of very scary things happening around our planet.
Climate conferences: COP 26, 27 and now …gasp, splutter … 28
COPS (Conference of the Parties) are arranged by the United Nations and bring together people from every country to find a way forward, taking into account the science. The big problem is the super-rich people and rich countries whose governments refuse to accept that climate change is really here, now, and must be fixed, starting now. They tell lies and don’t care that you will have to try to repair the terrible damage that they have done. Instead, they pass laws banning street demonstrations. They don’t want to hear your noisy non-violent protests (and how else can you brave young people fight for your futures and your planet?) demanding ACTION to fix the climate emergency. After all, this might disturb their cockktail parties, games of golf and whatever. Certainly COP 28 is shaping up to be the one where the Big Oil will begin to wonder if they got it wrong as floodwaters swoosh through this desert city. It’s almost as if our planet was speaking to the fossil fuels people. How much more evidence do they want that our planet, with its cargo of living things, is in tdeep rouble? And the fault is theirs.
War
The very last thing that any of us needs at such a critical time is another war. But just days after the COP26 conference ended in Glasgow, Russia invaded its neighbour, Ukraine . Already, many thousands of people have been killed. Including kids! Huge numbers of Ukrainian people have had to abandon their homes, destroyed by Russian attacks, and become refugees. Many Russians too hate this war.
Elephant in the room
And, like a huge elephant in the room — temporarily forgotten because of humans making wars — the big climate problem gets worse
OK, enough of these nightmare things. I’ve got loads of stuff for you here. Some is just fun (like jokes, questions, quizzes and games) and some is more serious.. I try my best to guide you through today’s most important issues. Poor kids! I’m so sorry to have to tell you all this miserable sad stuff.
A COP for Nature
AVAAZ, a global campaigning group — that’s their video below — cllaimed that they had support from well over 3 million people at the Montreal conference in December 2022. They voted for Nature but rather than 30 per cent, wanted 50 percent of planet Earth returned to its natural state.
The latest COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity seems to have been much more of a success than the climate COP27 a few weeks earier.. A real deal has been struck. The so-called 30 X 30 agreement means 30 per cent of the planet’s oceans and 30 per cent of its land will be protected and set aside for nature to recover from the disasters caused by humans. So you can see how this links in to climate change. partly directly because of the human obsession with burning fossil fuels but also because of the rapidly changing climate, faster than ever before.
Tiki says – Have a look at our newly completed guide – Planet Earth’s nine lives: Our planet’s limits !
Forest fire
Ruthless people are tearing our planet apart to get everything they can as soon as possible, especially the coal, oil and gas industries. Others are cutting and burning forest to make yet more land available for growing cattle, destroying countless numbers of living things. Why? Money, money, money! And, of course, greed.
If climate was a bank, you’d have saved it already.
But there is hope. As I said, most people know something of these things happening largely because of groups who make a lot of noise and get noticed.
I think of activist Greta Thunberg’s Fridays For Future, Extinction Rebellion and many others like them. It is young people with all their energy and determination who are beginning to make a big impact all around the world. The politicians are listening.
Greta for president – demo
Covid may have destroyed many things – people and their economies – but this gives humans the chance they really need to rebuild (reboot?) their economies in a completely different way. Hey people, without a healthy environment, you are nothing and kids know this.
This is your last chance to build sustainable just economies and ensure that everyone everywhere can live with kindness in peace and harmony with the natural world. This is the only way forward… the only way. If a simple Penguin can see this surely your clever politicians and companies can too? But get moving right away for the sake of kids everywhere.
“The mind of a child is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled.”