 of social justice work, so we are excited to share some poster. I'm 32 playways in my song, and I'm behind a peripheral vision. So you might want to tell me you're gonna get hungry, and eat most of the words you just said. Just so I would think there were none as awesome as you do. Because everyone offers a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room. God help you small to a jealousy while you are just fine. Everything that I could be assigned, but I will always say. Squish your eyes at me closer, I'm not between you and your ambition. I am a poster girl with no poster, I am 32 playways in that song, and I'm beyond your peripheral vision, and eat most of the words you just said. Squish your eyes at me closer. This is a little poem I wrote called Change Me, and they turned it into a beautiful song, so here we go. The needle to the bee who's hanging 93, I gotta pack my pink schoolers every day from 9 to 3, and I'm a bee who I wanna keep rules to genre, and he is me, so I need to use the sauna to go on that off the steam, to let my mind wander. Every time I write, I get a vision like Wanda, the marvel of my flows from east to west. Are you talking about a kilo? Well, his feet are best, yeah. I look with the stereo, it's every night, I make a competition, where's my competition? I'm not the white folk, I'll be scared of my religion. When I see a sheriff, I get terrified of prison. They glare at my complexion, I'm aware of my condition. Stare outside a window, so they put me on a stimulant. Sick of people telling me to leave the house and live a bit. Really trying to make it in music, I don't procrastinate. Get me on the track, that's when you see me activate. Ask about the name, they say he's savage on a break feed. I improve daily, but you always get the same. Be the best driver, if I was making fans go crazy. I don't think that any set, that was gonna change me. This is the problem that you have to see. Now it's on the cover of a magazine. Now it's in the way that you gotta read the speed. Now it's on the cover. Today, I wish we were here for a different reason. Could be here to celebrate. To celebrate each other. To celebrate life. To beg for it. To save ourselves. That we are doing today is not easy. It is hard to come together to future is in the hands of those who refuse to prioritize us. Do you hear us? Our future is in your story with you all today. Last summer, I attended the Governor's Institute of Vermont's Global Issues and Youth Action Program. The program we were given the opportunity to speak to our legislators directly. It made them seem human and approachable. That they came for us to hear what we had to say. It's them about the rallies and protests that we, their youth constituency, were bringing to them on the State House lawn. These acquaintances, strangers. For future generations, we have to recycle them to larger ways, such as collaborating with legislators to bring about change in the prime of legislation. It doesn't matter if the actions we take are big or small. What matters is that each person is doing their best and making some sort of positive change. Remember that we are all capable of change and of growth. This principle of tycoon alone applies to us all outside of faith, culture, ethnicity, and I encourage you all to carry it with you. Just slide down. I remember being a young child, exploring the woods around my house. I remember spending summers at my aunt's house on a lake in Maine listening to the wondrous calls of loans. According to the Vermont government, within the next 25 years, these loans will be gone as the effects of climate change continue to worsen. They are being another loss to the devastation we are facing, the devastation that we failed to prevent. I remember being a young child and looking around in wonder at the beautiful world around me. A world that even then was dying. I am 17 years old. I'm a child, but I was born into a crisis, so I won't stand down. I have stood on these steps for all too many times, begging lawmakers to listen to you think myself, and I will continue to do so until I feel that I live in a world where a future is a guarantee. It's fascinating to me, in a morbid way, to examine the behavior of those in charge. World leaders consistently put finance and personal gain over climate justice. It's like everyone around me is oblivious to the obvious truth that we have solutions. That's right, we know how to fix this. We know how to preserve our future. We don't need to find answers because we already have them. But no one will listen. No one is coming to help us. No one is doing anything. Why do we allow the leaders who we elect the future? Is their sole job not inhibitions or possible? Simply watch. I'm sick of waiting for alarming. My job just can't yell before y'all. But because those whose job it really is are incapable of doing it, I'm forced to stand up to say goodbye to my childhood and to fight so that others don't have to. Which, each decade, are lakes in a pond star between one and three days sooner than the prior decade. One day doesn't seem like a lot, but that is a dramatic difference caused by a dramatic rise in the temperature. As the world heats, natural disasters, such as tomes and wildfires, will worsen. People are already dying and will continue to do so. Everyone can make a difference. The truth is, action is simple. Action is terrifying. Action is based on fear and an urgency. Action is possible. Every single person here just helps by learning. Learn about climate legislation and activism. Research solutions. And begin to implement them into your lives. Speak up. Find out who your legislators are, both locally and nationally. Call them. Email them. Let them know that we want climate justice. And if they aren't going to fight for us, we will vote them out as soon as we turn 18. Right of what we are fighting for. And as I conclude this speech, I want to remind you why we are all here today. Can everyone close your eyes for a second? Just stick with me. Take a deep breath. Imagine what you want the future to look like. About a world in which we exist free of woey about natural disasters, rising sea levels and increasing temperature. Got that image? Okay, now open your eyes. How will you practice decone along? How will you repair the warrant? Thank you. I'm a junior at Essex High School. I welcome you to our seventh annual rally for the pipes said many times before. Should not need to fight for. Not be our responsibility. We should not have to be here year after year. But we are. We show duck today, and we will continue to show up until we see that our leaders care about our future. So far, I have been shown they don't care. The country leaders jeopardize our future. Something I hear often in and out of the state house is that we should slow down, that we should collect data and have all the facts before we make decisions. To that I ask, what have we been doing for the last 70 years? Have known and warned us about climate change for 70 years. Leaders do not do anything about this crisis, except to make empty promises and create goals they won't even attempt to meet. Mont's first piece of comprehensive climate legislation with the Global Warming Solutions Act. It has been three years since the act passed. We've gotten a lot of promises since then and no solutions. Fires Vermont to reduce greenhouse gas pollution to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. This is legally binding and allows private citizens to sue the state if we don't meet those goals. The action plan for Vermont's climate work for the next 77 years. The recommendations in the climate action plan have since been ignored or vetoed. We need the climate council's recommendations to be passed in order to reach the required levels. We are not on track to do this. These goals are important and we must take action to meet them. As we stand here today, lawmakers debate the first real tangible climate solution in many years. The Affordable Heat Act is a bill with in-the-ground solutions for Vermonters. It's systematic change when we desperately need. We have to change the way heating, cooling and transportation is done in the state. Fossil Fuel Corporations have spent 40,000 dollars trying to sink this bill. It worked last year when the Clean Heat Act standard a similar bill failed. The governor vetoed the Clean Heat Standard last year and made it clear he means to do it again with the Affordable Heat Act. We will not stand for that. Look around. There are 500 young people from across the state here today. We showed up because we care and we will continue to demand better for ourselves. We care about our futures and we will force leaders to care about them too. We will not stand down. I'm 17 years old. In many eyes, that makes me incompetent. Yet I'm here today. We are all here today showing up and we will continue to show up year after year, day after day. We are angry. Angry that we have been failed over and over. Angry that our leaders don't care about us or our futures. So I'm asking them to hear this. Pass the Affordable Heat Act. Do something. Don't let your legacy be waiting until it's too late to go back. Don't let your legacy be failing us. Thank you. Holly Levy, and I'm here speaking to you on behalf of Sunrise Chitinin, a youth-led group based in Chitinin, Vermont. We as young people have never seen the light at the end of the tunnel. We have never experienced the relief of the other side of darkness. We have never been granted the comfort of trust and security in our futures. As young people, we are told that we must persist, that we must push back, that we must continue this fight despite the fact that by no fault of our own it is a seemingly impossible effort. As young people, we are constantly told by adults that we must have hope. These things do not go together for all the isolation and loss and fear that we have witnessed and experienced already in our lives. It often feels that the last thing we should feel is hopeful. And yet, it has been assigned as our sole responsibility, this hopefulness. This responsibility is exhausting. It is a burden we have to bear that no generation before us has ever had to carry in such emergent circumstances. As the world slowly tears to pieces, we are expected to pick ourselves up, pull it together, and have enough hopefulness to do it all over again. The worst part is, it's true. We are hurt. We are scared. We are horrified by the terrors of watching our world crumble at the hands of people who often seem as though they're on a different planet, people who have no ears for our voices. It is true that despite this constant terror and struggle, we must persist. We must find hope and we must hold on to it. We must hold on to it our last chance at survival. We are constantly defined by darkness with the sadness and fear that constantly envelops us the morning of a home that is slipping away right before our eyes. We cannot let this happen. We must define ourselves. Yes, it is getting dark, but that does not define us. We are stars in a world that does everything to prevent it. We create our own hope as it turns out there is a light at the end of this tunnel and that light is this hope, this relentless belief that we do have time, that we do have each other and that that will be enough. Thank you. My name is Rabbi Michael Cohen. I'm the Rabbi Emeritus of the Israel Congregation in Manchester Center and I teach conflict resolution at Bennington College Academy. Since 1996, I've divided my time between our Vermont home and the R.A.V.A. Institute for Environmental Studies on Kiputz Kitarah. There we bring together college-age Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Moroccans and other international students to learn about environmental diplomacy including at our Climate Change Adaptation Center. Students from Vermont high schools, colleges and universities have studied at the R.A.V.A. Institute to study with us. I mention the R.A.V.A. Institute not only because it stands at the intersection of conflict resolution and addressing cross-border climate change but because it is located in the hyperarid R.A.V.A. desert. We live here in the beautiful, forested and watered Green Mountain State. There, trees are few, no topsoil, annual rainfall is about an inch and the annual evaporation rate is 13 feet a year. It is so important to be exposed to different ecosystems to understand them and then see one's own ecosystem with fresh eyes and with a better understanding and appreciation. That environmental diversity is also a metaphor for effective political activism. It is essential to understand those who think differently. We should never be so hubris thinking we are always correct. The test is to be open to different vistas. In the Talmud, the collection of ancient rabbinic debates, rabbis were paired together who disagreed with each other. In such encounters, we allow ourselves to meet those who don't think like us. Only through such meetings can we learn to understand where they are coming from. That gives us the best chance of being successful in creating the arguments to bring about the necessary change these times demand. In the mid 1970s, a few years after the first Earth Day, when I was a senior in Ewing High School, I co-founded the first recycling center in Ewing, New Jersey in the 1970s. I note that for a few reasons. Once an activist, always an activist. Welcome to the club. In addition, this work particularly around the environment is about long-term commitment that will include accomplishments and defeats. It can at times feel overwhelming and debilitating. Last month, United Nations General Assembly President Maria Fernanda Espinoza-Garces told the world we are the last generation that can prevent irreparable damage to our planet. Eleven years all we have ahead of us to change that direction. We often hear about the greatest generation, those individuals born in the first decades after the last century who fought in World War II against huge odds to save the world for democracy. Their self-sacrifice was their hallmark. Today we see democracy at home and abroad once again threatened. Success is neither linear nor short-term. That generation was also defined by the 1930s depression. Every generation has its challenges and you are no different. You will be defined by how you meet today's challenges. This is your time to become the greatest generation and I really mean the greatest generation for your task, our task is simply to save the planet. So how do we do that? Five short points. One, too often we only hear about the dire conditions of the planet. At the same time it is so important to remind ourselves of our climate change victories, learn from them, drink from them, become emboldened by them. At the end of every year we can look up those achievements. They sustain us and give us the knowledge and energy to go forward. It is critical to remain light even if the times are heavy. Two, listen to learn from and follow that great Vermont environmental prophet Bill McKibbin, the founder of 350.org in this month's Rolling Stone magazine he writes, it's our last shot. Here's how we take it. Climate change is ultimately a math problem and these are the numbers that could change the end of the story and some of it points to a way out. That is to say we have the knowledge and the answers. The test is about being effective in making those the compass that guides us. Three, which leads to the next point. The environment is a sophisticated, interconnected, beautiful system and so our path needs to be sophisticated, interconnected and beautiful. Related our way to resolving climate change or rather our approach to those who we need to bring along to make the necessary changes to repair our world must not be reduced to slogans and denunciations so we feel good. This is not about feeling good. This is about being compelling including serious engagement of those who may not think like us. Four, if you want to change and include economics, history and psychology in the classes you take, the books and articles you read, they are the keys to unlocking the doors to transformation. And finally, just last week former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden and climate change activists gave her final speech to the New Zealand Parliament. She pointedly closed by saying I cannot determine what will define my time in this place. But I do hope I have demonstrated something else entirely that you can be anxious, sensitive, kind and wear your heart on your sleeve. You can be a mother or not an ex-mormon or not, a nerd, a crier, a hugger. You can be all of these things and not only can you be here but you can lead. It is your time and responsibility to lead and be here this morning on the steps of the Vermont Legislature. It is clear that you have accepted that burden and recognized the agency that you all have. A famous rabbi Hillel from days long, long ago said, if I am not for myself who is for me? When I am for myself, what am I? That is to say we need to care for our needs but if that is all we do who will help with the requirements of others to make us if we are so limited in our focus. That insight of Hillel recognizes we live in concentric circles of yearning and obligations that start with each of us and expand out in a web of interdependence as stated by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. All humanity is tied together. All life is interrelated and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality and government of destiny. Hillel concludes his saying by asking if not now when. Gathered here today at this moment you clearly state now is the time to act as you take up the mantle of the protector generation. That is your destiny. Shabbat Shalom. Ramadan Karim. Have a restful and meaningful weekend. Thank you. Includes our speeches for now. Thank you all for listening. We are now going to be taking a group picture so if everyone could please make their way to this set of steps and the concrete so that we can take a group picture we would appreciate it. Thank you. Now it's in the land you've got to read between. Now it's on the cover of a magazine. There are pieces to the problem that you have to see. Now it's on the cover of a magazine. Now it's in the land you've got to read between. Steps so you can listen to our final three youth speakers. I'm a junior at Harvard Union High School and I just want to say thank you again for being here. And I would like to start off by acknowledging the land that we are all on. It is the land of the Abenaki peoples who have and continue to steward this land that we call home. Let's not forget that this is their land and they are still here. So thank you. Of how to be sustainable, what global warming was, why it happened and that was in a class we called sustainability. Well I don't remember the entirety of the class. I remember learning about sustainability seemed super fun. We got to watch Wall-E, take care of chickens and eat Pete's green carrots and flap bread pizza after our unit on sustainable foods. This was a class that we took throughout all of middle school and by the end of eighth grade I remember that I found myself dreading that class because we actually had to create projects and find ways to take our own action against climate change. Three years later and taking action still isn't as fun as watching Wall-E. It's become frustrating and also just sad. Sad that our future is unknown and unstable and sad that not enough of our lawmakers and voters can see that. But sad isn't why we're here. We're here because as youth we do know that our future is looking rough and we do care. And so we're going to keep advocating and keep fighting because we deserve a healthy future. The theme of this year's rally is climate justice. If you know me, you know that I'm pretty serious when it comes to social justice and to me climate change is about so much more than stopping climate justice is about so much more than stopping climate change. It's about figuring out the best way to slow the effects of climate change down while creating equal opportunities for everyone to help save our planet no matter their race, gender, socio-economic status, or background. Affordable Heat Act, a bill that is such a strong step in the right direction providing affordable and sustainable heating options to help slow down our quickly heating climate. We can't fix climate change if only the privileged people have access to the tools to be more sustainable and we need to start making our climate action actions of justice and equality and not just about money. Climate justice is about justice in our climate. It's as simple as that. It's about a broken promise called the Willow Project. The Willow Project is a perfect example of climate justice gone wrong. Some might say climate injustice. In addition to harming the planet itself, the Willow Project is also harming the people who live on this planet. Well, yes, the Willow Project will eventually affect many people's lives is directly and disproportionately affecting the lives of indigenous people. Environmental racism is a form of institutional racism leading to landfills, incinerators and hazardous waste disposal being disproportionately placed in communities of color. Does this ring a bell? Native people were on this land before anyone else and yet after all these years of systemic erasure, forced removal, lawmakers are still destroying their land and harming the people that live there. This needs to stop. We need more than climate action. We need climate justice. Thank you. My name is Sonia and today I'm speaking to you as a student and as a young person. My speech is kind of interactive. It's not super interactive. It's not dancing or anything. It's pretty simple. Everyone's just going to close their eyes and I'm just going to ask a few questions and if you agree with the statement you can raise your hand and if you don't want to participate that's also totally okay. If you feel comfortable and you're ready or confused or overwhelmed by the current state of our environment in the direction we're heading raise your hand if you ever felt mad or angry or enraged by the lack of action being taken by those in charge to protect the planet and the people. Raise your hand if you've ever felt maybe by being here empowered and inspired to do something to take action in some way. Raise your hand if you will not stop showing up. You will not stop showing up standing up and speaking up for the planet and its people. Alright, keep your hands up but open your eyes and look around. Everyone has their hands up pretty much. We are the generation that will feel the burden of this climate crisis that will have to live with the floods and the fires and the heat and the blizzards but this, you, us, everyone here with their hands raised this is how I know that we can solve this global problem. Arguably, some of the worst aspects of interest, division short term profit for the few at the expense of long term gains of many exploitation and cruelty injustice and ignorance all of that got us into this mess ironically or maybe perfectly the best aspects of human nature are going to be what gets us out collaboration, honesty, compassion empathy and accountability solidarity, those are the tools that will solve this global problem and we, all of the young people in this world who have been speaking up for our own future and who will not stop until that future is secured we are going to be how this climate crisis is solved because despite not causing this problem and having every valid reason to disengage and feel upset and overwhelmed by this crisis we are out here taking action when leaders act like kids kids become leaders I know I know that we can solve this problem and I know that our generation will have nothing because despite how daunting it is to literally be staring down the biggest global issue of our lives every single one of us showed up today and I know that we will keep showing up until our future and the future of every single human being still to come is secured we will keep showing up and standing up and speaking up, I believe in us thank you alright, mine's going to be the last speech for today I know it's hot you can all head out soon my name, whoa lean on the podium, noted my name is Miriam Sarota Winston and I'm a freshman at Montpelier High School this is the seventh annual rally for the planet we missed a couple years because of COVID but that still means that we maybe not the same people but the same groups, the same schools the same young people with essentially the same demands have been here every year for seven years standing on this lawn continuing to demand that our leaders take action in those years we have made minimal progress as a state, as a nation, and as a world to slow climate change we have not done enough and that makes me angry because our world needs better we demand better you remember COP26, but I do I was 11 when it happened I remember the overwhelming hope that this group of world leaders supposedly a group of people dedicated to the well-being of their countries and the world I remember my hope the Biden's presidential campaign but I do I remember hoping here maybe is a president who understands the importance of stopping climate change here is a president who has listened when we spoke up for our planet and for our future I remember the hope that he would do the right thing for the past years we and our youth allies around the entire world have been demanding that these politicians take up and see that we are destroying our planet we have been hoping that they will realize that the world, that justice and equity, that our home is more important than profit and politics COP26 failed to take the actions necessary to keep climate change from reaching catastrophic levels and so did COP27 President Biden approved the Willow Project a massive oil drill in Alaska the Willow Project will put an estimated 239 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere during the project's 30 year lifetime that is not climate justice that is a broken promise furious at the leaders who promise justice and then put profit over people and our planet and you have the right to be angry too you have the right to be furious to demand better in fact you have to be angry you have to stand up and fight for your future you have to realize that as much as we continue to have hope and belief in the possibility of a brighter more just future we have to fight for that future we have to hold our leaders accountable yes this should not be our responsibility we are students but we are in the next generation sadly it has fallen to us our role is important we are not powerless we are the powerful reminder of the next generation of who exactly our leaders are failing who they must do better for we will be present constantly to remind our leaders of this and when our mere presence is not enough we will be vocal we will speak up we will not let them forget what really matters nothing more powerful than us together yes angry and afraid but also hopeful and driven standing up for what our planet and our communities need we have a chance to build a better future we have a chance to stop climate change because I do believe in us I believe that we can build a better world I am asking our politicians in this state house making excuses I am asking them to get their priorities straight I am asking them to pass the affordable heat act pass the transformation reforms and meet the climate action plan goals we will be too busy we will not let them have more important things to do we will keep reminding them that we we and our planet are the most important things never forget we are not powerless we are thousands of young people just in this state I believe that we can build a better future together a more just future free of climate change I believe in the change we can make when we stand up and work together and demand better I believe in us going to be part of this movement soon and a great weekend