SEVERN CULLIS-SUZUKI

Engaging with your school as a unit of community is pretty powerful.

Clean air and clean ocean, you can't translate that into money if you look at the cost to health, cost to fishery industry.

Well, I think it's pretty incredible watching Greta Thunberg in action.

I worry that more and more kids my age are growing up without experiencing the outdoors, which means that fewer will care about the natural world.

There isn't a line that you can draw between the air and your body. We are the environment.

A theme throughout my life has been the intergenerational relationships human beings have.

When you pay for something, it's not just buying something from the store. You are actually supporting the political and economic structures that provide you with that good.

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

Growing up there was always a sense of 'We have so many gifts and we have to use that for the betterment of the planet.'

Despite humans killing off whales as much as they could, give it time and they come back. If we give nature a chance, it will regenerate.

It's always been young people at the forefront of any revolution.

I am called an environmentalist a lot. But I don't necessarily identify with that word specifically, because of the compartmentalization of the so-called environmental movement.

When we look as a society, we've really lost the connection between our actions and the future.

Fragmentation is a big part of the problem. You have a city where trash is taken away from the curb every week, and you don't see it any more, and you don't have any sense of where water comes from. So there's no sense of responsibility and accountability and there's also no sense of empowerment for our actions.

I really have a passion for the sea, so I think it's important that whatever I do, I want to be near the sea.

We find ourselves heading fully into an era of mass extinction.

Real environmental change depends on us. We can't wait for our leaders. We have to focus on what our own responsibilities are and how we can make the change happen.

I don't want to be involved with just the environment because I think other issues tie so much into the environment, like native issues, children's issues, women's rights - I think they all completely tie into each other, even the economy.

In school you teach us not to fight with others, to work things out, to respect others, to clean up our mess, not to hurt other creatures, to share, not be greedy. Then why do you go out and do the things you tell us not to do? You grownups say you love us, but I challenge you, please, to make your actions reflect your words.

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.

Reducing our personal impact on the Earth via our ecological footprint, stop driving cars, eat less meat, all these things matter.

I began to lead two lives... one being a kid and the other starting to speak internationally about the environment... and advocating for social and environmental justice.

The '90s came, and then the 2000s, and we saw radical corporate interest extremism, we've seen the disparity between rich and poor just get bigger, with globalisation and the corporate agenda on the rise ever since.

In my home city of Vancouver, most people put out their recycling boxes. The organic grocery and cafe on Fourth Avenue is flourishing. Bikes are popular, and there are a few gas-electric hybrid cars gliding around. But as this new century begins, my twentysomething generation is becoming increasingly disconnected from the natural world.

When you are little, it's not hard to believe you can change the world.