Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I recently had the pleasure of visiting the German International School Sydney in Terrey Hills. The year 3 and 4 students were keen to read and present their letters to me about climate change. They want their voices to be heard too. Today I will read one from a nine-year-old student: 'Dear Dr Scamps, I'm going to explain why we definitely need to stop climate change. Firstly, bushfires are affecting the earth's habitat, so that is why we are losing a lot of animals. In fact, our animals are dying all over the world from wildfires. We need more people to open their eyes and really think about it. We don't want this. Secondly, sea levels are rising because icebergs and ice caps are melting. This will make it hard for polar bears to move and catch their prey and can lead to them starving to death. In a short time, Fiji may not be here, and the earth will become a mad, gassy planet. Thirdly, pollution is making skies grey. For example, pollution is all because of us, and, in a few hundred years, the earth may become uninhabitable, and maybe we'll have to live on Mars. In fact, the earth without humans would be a peaceful, green planet with flowers blooming—could you just imagine that? For these reasons, pollution is bad, so we need to stop this chaos. To conclude, I believe that we should stop making factories and stop polluting the planet.'