Quotes from Severn Cullis-Suzuki

I began to lead two lives... one being a kid and the other starting to speak internationally about the environment... and advocating for social and environmental justice.

Racism really, really makes me mad. I can see identical traits in people from other sides of the world and I can't believe some people would treat other human beings like they weren't even the same species.

Clean air and clean ocean, you can't translate that into money if you look at the cost to health, cost to fishery industry.

When I was little, the world was simple. But as a young adult, I'm learning that as we have to make choices - education, career, lifestyle - life gets more and more complicated.

It's always been young people at the forefront of any revolution.

There isn't a line that you can draw between the air and your body. We are the environment.

I am called an environmentalist a lot. But I don't necessarily identify with that word specifically, because of the compartmentalization of the so-called environmental movement.

I really have a passion for the sea, so I think it's important that whatever I do, I want to be near the sea.

Engaging with your school as a unit of community is pretty powerful.

The Haida people taught me when you are depleted, go to places that are sacred for you - the ocean, or a forest. That is where you will find incredible energy.

I worry that more and more kids my age are growing up without experiencing the outdoors, which means that fewer will care about the natural world.

At nine, I started catching fish in Vancouver full of tumours from toxins.

In my home city of Vancouver, most people put out their recycling boxes. The organic grocery and cafe on Fourth Avenue is flourishing. Bikes are popular, and there are a few gas-electric hybrid cars gliding around. But as this new century begins, my twentysomething generation is becoming increasingly disconnected from the natural world.

Reducing our personal impact on the Earth via our ecological footprint, stop driving cars, eat less meat, all these things matter.