Ecobuzz

It takes an idiot not to notice my obsession with my home. That is, my home planet. Let's put it this way, I am the president of "Students Towards Environmental Protection" at my school, and I've got a t-shirt that says think green. Hey, I hug trees and I'm weird, but I'm not a tree hugging weirdo.

Anyway, on October 30^th, 2008, at Fletcher’s Meadow Secondary School, the 6^th annual Ecobuzz Conference was held by Peel Environmental Youth Alliance (PEYA), and hosted by Fletcher’s Meadow’s Students Towards Environmental Protection (STEP), of which I am the president.

There are 3 parts to this conference that I was a major part of, 1) I was the Volunteer Co-ordinator, along with Xinou Gao, 2) I was the creator of the Conference Guide and 3), I was head volunteer at Registration.

Ecobuzz is a conference that brings together students from all over the Peel Region so that they can get a better understanding of the environmental opportunities available for them, and so that they can make an action plan to better the environment in their school the following year. It was an amazing experience to be a part of this, because the environment is not something like homework, where you can leave it behind and hope to some higher being that everything turns out alright; it needs to be worried about right now, because 10 or 20 years from now, it might just be too late.

Maybe the older generation doesn’t want to take a step right now; but then again, it won’t be their problem for too long, but it will be their mistakes that leave their children an earth so polluted that surviving itself is a miracle. It was for this reason that us youth can’t stand still. You may think that you have the rights to leave a barren earth as our future, but that is not your choice, we have a right in the world we want to live in; and it is for that reason that we choose to make a difference. You don’t have to make a difference if you don’t want to, but I’m not going to just sit by and watch my home, my only home, become torn and ripped apart because of the ignorance and selfishness of other people. How would you like it if people came into your home, and destroyed it while you watched? I doubt that you would be able to sit still; my point exactly, I won’t watch over-indulgence and addiction to comfort destroy my home, so it is absolutely ridiculous for anyone to assume that the younger generation will just sit and watch this happen, we will make a change, and there is nothing you can do to stop us.

...After all, it is simply self-preservation in a sense.