The World is big and | am small.

One day | wish to See it all.

Pacific islands, northern Lights,

Himalayas, desert nights.

The World is big and | am small.

The Earth's in trouble, hear her call.

Me and my nine-year-old peers

Have now lived through its hottest years.

One degree Warmer’s our demise

And We're on track for more to rise,

Carbon at an all-time high,

lce sheets about to liquefy.

Goodbye New York, and Miami,

both cities swallowed by the sea!

Whose fault is all this climate mess?

You the grown-ups must confess.

While cities burned, and temperatures soared,

You upped and left the Paris accord!

You choSe big cars, fast food, and coal;

The fossil fuels my future stole.

Bye coral reef, and polar bear.

Kids of my oWn? Not Sure | dare.

You think this is a fun rhyme book?

With your inaction, the Earth will cook!

We've had enough of empty vows

your plastic bags, your farting cows.

The tons of carbon you emit

leave kids like me in real deep..you Know.

You made this gorgeous country too

the runner up in CO2.

You say you'd make our country great,

But the planet holds our fate.

On a hot February day,

You barbequed and went to play.

But it’s no time for celebration,

You totally screwed my generation!

With storms and droughts, and mass migration,

you're still just stuck in conversation?

| Know, we're Kids, So We don't Know

about all your big adult woe:

your Spending bills and budget fears

your re-election each tWo years.

We Kids can't vote, We don't pay tax

or donate to your super PACs.

The only thing that We can do

iS Stand and say: Shame, shame on you.

Big chargeis hard, that's surely true

but there's so much that you can do.

Why not start out with one ambition:

to cut down our carbon emission?

Invest in renewable energy,

Declare a national emergency’

We've Said our bit, now you get cracking.

No more pipelines, no more fracking!

We may be kids, but We are pissed.

We're fighting now just to exist!

lf we don’t protect all it’s worth,

Prepare to say: Goodbye Earth!

Written by Zayne Cowie

with help from Pamela Druckerman, Leah Varjacques,

and Julie Lunde

\LLustrations by Joey Abisso

Property of The New York Times

For questions, contact opinion@nytimes.com