Three decades before the school strikes, a twelve-year-old Canadian girl stood before the delegates of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit – one of the first major global gatherings to put environment and development on the same stage – and quieted the room. The speech made her known worldwide as “the girl who silenced the world for five minutes.”
Her message then is the movement's message now: adults were gambling with a future they would not live to see, and children had no seat at the table. Severn has spent the decades since as an environmental advocate, educator and speaker – living proof that the youth climate voice did not begin with this generation, and will not end with it.
Achievements
- Addressed the plenary of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit at age 12
- Became a defining early voice for intergenerational climate justice
- Decades of continued work in environmental education and advocacy
In Planet vs. Patriarchy: Girls are leading the sustainable revolution.