Great poem by Tamsin Ireland

I was reading Resurgence this week and came across a poem by 14-year-old pupil Tamsin Ireland that won the 2009 Young People’s Climate Change Conference competition.

I hope she does not mind me copying it below - it is a great poem that shows how important it is to see things from the right perspective....stick with it as there is a clever twist...

We have to see things the right way round
There is no hope
It is not true that
It is always possible to get out of bad situations
We must acknowledge that
We have made many mistakes Although in the past
We knew the consequences
We didn’t change then even though The air grew thicker and
Made the seas rise
Because of our lack of care in 2009 we
Have nothing left
It is wrong to believe that we
Can make a difference as individuals
All around the world people should know that we
Cannot bring back what we had
Even though we
Made an effort
As people together we
Became less and less powerful
The droughts, the hurricanes, the floods
Grew larger and larger
And our will to make things right
Disappeared completely before 2020
Selfish attitudes
Make things difficult for future generations
Some ways we found to create energy did not
Ensure that our children can live as well as we do
We must
Turn Things Around

Confused? Now read the poem from the bottom up again.

By Tamsin Ireland, age 14, Kingswood School, Bath