Dear Mr. Prime Minister, and all those it may concern,
My name is Amelia Penney-Crocker, I’m a 15 year old writer and activist from Halifax, Nova Scotia. I’ve written you a letter a week about climate change for almost a year now. In so many of my letters I tell you the horrors of what might happen to my generation if this problem goes unchecked. I talk about that a lot, and I’m often ignored or told that it won’t be as big a problem as I think. Often when people are ignorant about an issue I simply think to myself, ‘history will prove them wrong.’ But this issue is different. I would love it if history proved them right. I would love if I was the one who was wrong. In any case, I’ve written you a poem to celebrate 50 letters. 50 weeks of seeking climate justice.
I told you so: Amelia Penney-Crocker
I don’t want to stand on your graves and say I told you so
I don’t want the climate deniers to say you were right
I don’t want this fight
I sit and I write, I write every day
I tell you how the world will end again and again
I love to be right, but I don’t want to be right
I don’t want this fight
When you all die and it comes to a close
That will be the moment for I told you so
But then you are dead and I am left
So I told you so is my own death sentence
I don’t care if dead people see I’m right
I care that I never end up being so
I don’t want to prove my point in my own downfall
I don’t want to stand on your grave and say I told you so
I don’t want to be hailed as an environmental hero
I want you to stop this, so I’m not right
I don’t want this fight.
I hope you have a wonderful day
Amelia Penney-Crocker