Twentieth Letter: Tragedy

Dear Mr. Prime Minister, and all those it may concern,

My name is Amelia Penney-Crocker. I’m a 14 year old Nova Scotian writer and climate activist. Since December, I’ve been writing you a letter a week and this letter marks my 20th letter. For letter ten I sent you a poem that I’d written about the Climate Crisis and I have another poem today.

Many things have changed in the world since I started writing. COVID-19 is obviously a massive global tragedy and more recently in my home province of Nova Scotia 22 people were killed in a mass shooting. All the grief that I’m feeling for all the suffering in my community and around the world has got me thinking about global tragedies and people acting in times of suffering. The Climate Crisis is a unique tragedy. It has the potential to be the biggest tragedy in history, but it will happen over time. If we can act now to stop it however, it doesn’t need to be such a tragedy. But the longer we wait the more of a tragedy this is likely to be. It’s hard to do things when you can’t see the good it’s doing immediately. Social distancing is hard and we don’t see the good that it does for about a week, and all we see if we succeed is lack of tragedy. This is similar to climate action. That is what makes it so hard to act on the climate tragedy. Just because we don’t see the good in our action now, doesn’t mean others won’t feel the pain of inaction latter. That’s what I’m try to say.

Tragedy: By Amelia Penney-Crocker

9-11 hit us with a bang.
It sent a sharp stab into our soul
And we joined hands to heal the wound.
We did things then for the greater good
Opened up our doors and let people in,
For humanity
We saw the pain right away,
We saw how we could help,
We did what we could
We stood together
COVID-19 came like a swarm
It drove a knife in deep and slow
And we stood apart to heal the wound
We did things then for the greater good
Stopped everyday activities,
For humanity
We began to see the pain in a week
We knew what we’d done
Had all been worth it
We kept on fighting
We stood together
Climate Catastrophe is coming like slow death
The stab may only feel like a prick now
But when the knife goes down
It will never come back up
Never heal
There is so much we should do
But we don’t see the result of our action
And it’s just so hard
And it doesn’t make a difference
The pain will come over time,
But if we do what we must
It won’t come at all
But we forget to stand together
As if we’d learned nothing

Thank you for reading this letter. I’m sorry it’s so long. I know that climate action is on the back burner during this time of COVID-19, but I want everyone to remember that the climate crisis will also be a tragedy and it’s already cost millions of lives. Unlike most tragedies it can be minimized or even completely stopped by action today. I’m sorry this letter is rambling, I’m sorry it’s long, but there is so much pain in my community right now and I desperately want to see climate action so we can stop more pain in the future.

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Amelia Penney-Crocker