7. Environment

In the following passage, writer and philosopher Olivier Clerc describes the principle of the heated frog that didn't understand that it was going to be steamed:

Imagine a cooking pot, filled with cold water and a frog swimming in it. The stove is turned on, the water is warming up. As the temperature rises very slowly, the frog doesn't notice anything. It soon becomes lukewarm which
the frog likes. So it continues swimming.

The water is really warm now, the frog becomes tired but it is not afraid. Then, the water is hot which the frog dislikes but as it is too weak it stands it, doing nothing. In the end, the frog is steamed.
If the frog had directly been thrown into water with a temperature of 50°C it would have jumped out immediately on its own.
Conclusion: as long as things change slowly we don't recognize anything and therefore we don't react, we don't oppose and we don't rebel.

However, there are people who do differently: In 1992, twelve year old Severn Suzuki appeals to the United Nations and the rest of the world.1)

"Coming here today, I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future. I am here to speak for all generations to come. I'm only a child and I don't have all the solutions, but I want you to realise, neither do you!

• You don't know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer.
• You don't know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream.
• You don't know how to bring back an animal now extinct.
• And you can't bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert.

If you don't know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!
Here, you may be delegates of your governments, business people, organisers, reporters or politicians - but really you are mothers and fathers, brothers and sister, aunts and uncles - and all of you are somebody's child.
I'm only a child yet but I know that we are all part of a family, five billion strong, in fact, 30 million species strong and we all share the same air, water and soil - borders and governments will never change that.
I'm only a child yet but I know we are all in this together and should act as one single world towards one single goal.

At school, even in kindergarten, you teach us to behave in the world. 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?

Do not forget why you're attending these conferences, who you're doing this for - we are your own children.
You are deciding in what kind of world we will grow up. My father always says "You are what you do, not what you say."
Well, what you do makes me cry at night. You grown ups say you love us. I challenge you; please make your actions reflect your words."

And what is the outcome now, 15 years later? For sure it is still a current issue for the European Union as well as for us in our daily life. The Natura 2000 European network of protected areas, protection of the last remaining natural parks in Europe, a directive concerning water quality, the Climate and Energy package and numerous initiatives are founded. But still, Europe is miles from the optimal implementation of its plans.
Coming back to the example of Olivier Clerc: we are surely not half cooked yet but it is time to act...before it is too late.

1) Severn Suzuki, 12 years old, speaking at a UN summit in 1992 for the ECO, Environmental Children's Organization, a group of twelve and thirteen-year-olds from Canada trying to make a difference