Can I tell you guys something amazing? Did you know that in the past couple of years the human race has been breaking more records than ever before? Isn’t that awesome? Look at how far we’ve come! Just to give you an idea of how important this achievement is, let me list a couple of the biggest ones. Each year since 2016, the temperature of the world has reached a new record high. The rate at which glaciers and the polar ice caps are melting has hit a new record as well! Yay! Oooh, and did I tell you that sea levels are rising faster now than they have in 2000 years? Now there’s one for the guinness book. Isn’t that just awesome? No? Correct, it is not, although some people seem to think it is because each year the human race seems to continue to try and break these records.

We humans deem ourselves the superior species on the planet. We have plopped ourselves on the top of the food chain, we have thrown animals out of their habitats to make space for ourselves, and we have built huge colonies and cities around the world to support our growth and development. We even have the power to destroy the entire planet with the push of a single red glowing button. Seriously. People have stopped developing bombs because, in their current state, if they were ever launched they would have the power to make the world uninhabitable, so there’s no point in making any more. As a species, we have so much power. And yet, I don’t think that we’ll ever need to use any of those bombs to destroy the world, because we are already doing so with our cars that spew black fumes into the clear, blue sky, our plastic products that get lodged in the throats of sea creatures, and our huge populations, chewing up every single scrap and morsel of every beautiful living thing on the planet until the entire thing is just one barren, empty wasteland.

Take us in Singapore for example. We love our lives here, we live pretty comfortably. There’s a fantastic quote from a movie, the name of which escapes me, that I would apply to our situation. “People don’t realise how bad something truly is until they’re living it. They’ll flip to the news channel on their TVs, see footage of polar bears drowning as their habitats melt. They’ll watch the screens with tears in their eyes and say “good god, that’s just awful”. And then they’ll go back to watching their sitcoms and soap operas, air conditioning systems running full tilt and lights blaring, because it’s just so much easier to do that. So much easier to ignore the problem because it isn’t as obvious as some others.”

Well, what happens when it becomes obvious? What then? Will we only start addressing the problem when the first few beaches disappear, the first few houses go underwater, the first few islands shrink? Will we address it then? Because you know what that sounds like, don’t you? Procrastination. Hey, procrastination isn’t an awful thing. I’m guilty of it, and I’m sure that everyone else in this room is as well.  However, the difference is that my procrastination and our procrastination isn’t what’s probably going to end up leading the human race to extinction at some point in the foreseeable future.

Not only procrastination, but also priorities. In the modern world, people seem more concerned with things like racism, sexism. Now I’m not saying that these aren’t really important topics and issues, but what is the point in trying to abolish racism when, in a short while, there may not be any races left? What is the point in trying to abolish sexism when, in a short while, there will be no sexes to make equal? Humans are greedy. They always have been, and always will be. But this is taking it to a new level. They are now not even thinking too much about their own survival as much as about their own comfort. Not even the comfort of their children, or maybe even themselves in the future, but only their contemporary comfort. They are thinking more about the now than they are about the then. Each past generation seems to have the ideology of “oh, we’ll be gone by then, so we needn’t worry.” Well, what happens when that becomes untrue? When all of humanity is crowded on to a tiny little continent while all the others have gone under, will we then finally say “Ok, something’s gotta be done?” I hope it doesn’t take that long, but by the looks of things now, it very well might.

The world is going under. There is no denying that, and those who try to are lying to themselves.

The world is going under. Species will go extinct and lose their habitats incredibly quickly. Soon the ocean floors will be littered with the carcasses of dead animals that have drowned at the hands of human activities.

The world is going under. The sea levels will continue to rise until every single bit of ice has been melted away into the oceans and all the space that remains is a fraction of what we had before.

The world is going under. Not all people see it yet, and even if they can, not all people can be bothered to do something about it, but it is coming, and it is coming fast. It’s time to do something.

The world is going under, and with it, we go under. Thank you.