Now we Children save the World Tree b y Tree - Plant-for-the-Planet

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The end of the polar bear was (just) the beginning. Frithjof Finkbeiner talks about his son, Felix: A presentation with consequences The next Monday I gave my presentation in front of the class. I called it “The End of the Polar Bear.” I told everybody about the greenhouse effect and what the increase in CO2 has to do with the increase in climate temperature. I also spoke about how trees bind CO2 and turn it into oxygen. Trees help to make greenhouse gases harmless. Of course, I realized, there needs to be more trees – we just have to make sure that it happens! So, at the end of my presentation I told my classmates: “Let us plant a million trees in every country on earth.” Since then we have been planting trees. To us and the world, each of them stands as a symbol for climate justice. Because if an American puts out 40 times, and a European puts out 20 times as much CO2 in the air as an African, then obviously the African should pay the least for it. Because if every person had the right to put out an equal amount of CO2, then the African, who only puts out 0.5 of a ton could sell the other 1.5 tons to somebody else, someone who wants to drive a big car for example. This individual would then have to dig a little deeper into their pockets if they want to drive a Lexus. In this case the African would get more money because he or she would not be affecting the environment as much as the others, and with this money they could do good things like build schools and hospitals. This could ultimately help to change the fact that over 30,000 people still go hungry every day, including countless children. At first I was amazed at how much interest I had awakened in my class. My classmates thought that it was a great idea and my teacher thought so too. Two days later she let me give my presentation in front of representatives from each class in the school. And on Thursday I gave another presentation, to the Director of the school! Pretty soon I was traveling with a laptop to other schools, explaining what the climate crisis is and talking about my tree-planting idea. At this time I was 9 years old. The presentation at the school was really well received. Probably because there are a lot of children who are really worried about the climate crisis like I am and want to do something about it. And maybe they feel like I do, that adults should stop talking and finally do something. I think that if we children don’t find solutions and push adults to act then nothing will happen for a long time! We kids have to work together! Then all of the problems that we are currently facing will finally be within our grasp. The climate crisis, our shrinking amount of resources, the loss of biodiversity, the financial crisis, the conflict between the rich and the poor – all of this is probably not solvable if everybody only thinks and acts as if their own country should have every advantage. Clearly there can be no world contract when everybody only thinks about him or herself. Only when we first see ourselves as a global family, and only when we understand that the future isn’t divisible will we be able to tackle all of these problems. 12 13 About Felix Finkbeiner Felix was always an independent kid. Already at 7 years old he would travel alone every day from our little town Pähl four hours with the train, bus and tram system to Augsburg, because he absolutely insisted on attending the international school there. As his parents, it was a horrible time for us. When he has taken to something, he is incred- ibly determined and persistent. He is what we in Bavaria call a “driller of thick wood,” or in High German, a hardheaded individual, but in a good- sense certainly. When he was 9 years old and had the idea about planting trees all over the world, we thought it was really nice, but we didn’t really give it a lot of meaning – that is, until early 2008 when we had a key experience: The Global Marshall Plan Foundation, which was founded by me and my wife, had organized the World Commons Forum in Berlin. A fantastic event with a press conference, experts from all over the world and many important and influential people, but nobody from the press was there to be seen. Not one! A month later Felix and his friends organized their own press conference in the Munich Literature House, and people from the press stood in line to get in! The story was reported and written about 500 times! This was the point when we and our foundation first understood how much power children wield in this fight. But this fight is not over economic growth, influence, or production figures. It’s the fight over their future, their lives. Their credibility and sincerity of purpose is something that we adults often lack.
www.plant-for-the-planet.org We are growing! Many students had already joined our cause. The high-school graduates Gregor, Sascha and Christian, who came to us from the Evangelical Academy in Tutzing, made a website for us, over 100 students helped us to send letters to other schools, both of my sisters Franziska and Flurina helped me, and my parents too. We only had to find a name for our movement. On the internet I finally discovered that in 2003 the UNEP had started a project for kids called “Plant for the Planet” (By the way, UNEP is the abbreviation of the United Nations Environment Programme, the department of the UN* which is responsible for the protection of the environment). For a long time nothing had really been done with this project – but WE wanted to do something and immediately! Plant-for-the-Planet – the name matched perfectly with our plans. * Because everybody on Earth has to work together, an English name for our organization makes sense. It’s the only way we could guarantee that people from all nationalities could come together. We children want our voices to be heard! Incidentally, Wangari Maathai matched our start with the UNEP with the launch of her own “Billion Tree Campaign” for adults. Together, the adult and children’s campaign is called “Plant for the Planet: The Billion Tree Campaign”. UN (United Nations) is a union of many countries from around the world. Its main tasks are: the security of the free world, observing international law, protection of human rights, and the promotion of international cooperation. On the 28 th of March, 2007, two months after my presentation, we planted our first tree in front of my school. Shortly afterwards other schools began to follow. 14 Reporters from newspapers and from radios came and wanted to know more about our idea. In November of 2007 I gave my first large presentation, to the Rotary Club in Weilheim, Germany. After I left for Weilheim it became really hectic because I thought that I had left the notes for my speech behind. After the presentation I finally found them though – in one of my socks! I had stuffed them there so that I wouldn’t forget them at home … but ever since then I haven’t needed my notes to give a presentation. 15 Our first tree was planted on the 23rd of April, 2008. However in just a year I was able to announce at a press conference that we had already planted tree number 50,000. The story of what we children had done for our own future was reported everywhere: in newspapers, TV, radio, and on the internet. In July, 2008, I traveled to Norway in order to give a presentation about climate justice to over 700 children from 105 countries at the children’s conference of the UNEP. Afterward the other children in the youth board of the UNEP voted for me to join them. The board consists of 7 kids, each one representing an entire continent. “My” continent is Europe. And my task is to explain to as many people as possible that we absolutely need to do something against the climate crisis, injustice and inequality, not sometime in the future, now! Even in my wildest dreams I never thought that Plant-for-the-Planet would be such a smash! But a very important part of my idea was that we kids would tackle these problems together – including the fact that not only I, but also as many other kids as possible would travel around, giving presentations and interviews, organizing informational events and hosting tree-planting parties. Plant-for-the- Planet is a message that needs ambassadors! Today I am no longer the only person who is giving presentations and calling for tree-planting parties. There are now over 1,200 Climate Justice Ambassadors all over the world, children from over 70 countries working with Plant-for-the-Planet. And people are really listening to us! Our idea is simply too contagious! Alone I would have had no chance to answer every request for presentations and interviews. We just simply had to have to more kids. Together we can achieve quite a lot!
Page 1 and 2: Felix & Friends Tree by Tree A tree
Page 3 and 4: Felix Finkbeiner und seine Freunde
Page 5 and 6: German edition available as book at
Page 7 and 8: Introduction The climate crisis is
Page 9: Felix explains: How everything bega

Now we Children save the World Tree b y Tree - Plant-for-the-Planet

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