Through A Child’s Eyes (Poem)

Why are the forests on fire?
Where will the animals go?
They must be going haywire
In that scary, smokey glow.

That poor koala looks burned
His paws look so black and sore
The rescuers look concerned
Are these fires worse than before?

Why are those people crying?
Has their home burned to the ground?
It looks like they are trying
To find something in that mound.

How does the plastic exit
The land and enter the seas?
Why can’t we recycle it
From within our own countries?

Why is plastic still in use
When there are greener choices?
There is simply no excuse
We must all raise our voices.

Why does the air make me wheeze?
When I’m outside with my toys?
I wish our street had more trees
And less traffic, smog and noise.

Trees make oxygen for free
And suck up bad CO₂
So then why cut down a tree?
We already have too few.

Why are their houses flooded?
Did the river burst its banks?
If the hills had been wooded
Trees could’ve stored rain like tanks.

Can we rewild the farmland
To capture more CO₂?
And ensure that the peatland
Wildlife is protected too?

Will these disasters get worse
With every year that passes?
Is it too late to reverse
The warming greenhouse gases?

Will the glaciers all melt
Making the sea levels rise?
I wish we’d already dealt
With CO₂ in our skies.

What will this century see?
Anxious thoughts keep me awake.
I see a flooded city
With bridges about to break.

Will rainforests have vanished?
And some great rivers run dry?
Will most wildlife be banished?
Gone, in the blink of an eye?

You say that we still have time
To fix the climate crisis
But Nature, in the meantime,
Will make more sacrifices.

Climate change is clearly real
So our leaders need to act.
It’s time for a Green New Deal
And legally binding pact.

With a childish perspective
We see what is true and fair
Balance is the objective
We can’t afford not to care.

We can see through a child’s eyes
What clearly needs to be done
Inaction is so unwise
And costly in the long run.

We cannot take forever
To do whatever it takes
This is a huge endeavour
But there are no higher stakes.

So sometimes it takes a child
To raise a village and say
The time has come to rewild
And to live another way.

By Ciara Muldoon
Co-founder of SearchScene.com, the charitable search engine that protects the planet and your privacy while you search the web. 

Written 09 February 2021

Among other things, this poem was inspired by Damon Gameau’s documentary, “2040”.