Voices in a Changing Climate

When you mention climate change, the first thing that comes to my mind is, “Why do you take me back to school?” And even in school, I knew climate change as weather changes, and that was not my concern. But I have gained knowledge about it, and we all played a part in making it happen. Especially people with resources and money; but they have done nothing to change their behavior. The most affected people are the poor and disadvantaged people. Life revolves around climate change and everything is affected by it; just to name a few: housing, water and sanitation, ocean acidification, wildfires, dumpsites, and the wetlands. My question is, how can I worry about climate change when I’m living in a shack? When it’s raining, I become wet, and we drown in the sewers every winter because of the lack of housing and service delivery. Putting bread on the table is my first priority while the big spenders worry about which car they should buy. When I think about that, it is not fair to the disadvantaged people, because when nature takes its course, we will all be implicated – being rich or poor. I’m sending this message to the decision makers to hear what I have to say about this matter. We are all obsessed about money and big cars while polluting mother Earth and nature, but have forgotten about climate change. When are we going to change and follow the footsteps of our great grandparents and respect nature, not gamble with it? There’s always campaigns advocating the knowledge of climate change but still no change. COP26 had a summit to speak about finding ways to deal with climate change. And my voice was also part of the people who spoke that day through my poem, The Land Is Crying, where it was shared in the UK on Channel 4. I was also part of the team where we made a short video about climate change and incorporating it in our daily lives. I also wrote a poem about climate change, building shacks in the wetlands, fires happening in the informal settlements, and showing that the level of living in South Africa is not the same. We can all work together to do things differently in order to prevent climate change from happening; the ball is in our hands right now. I will share the poem I wrote with you and I hope you will be inspired to look differently to climate change. Find his poem here: https://amava.org/2022/06/22/the-seriousness-of-climate-change-overlooked/