TakingITGlobal

Introduction In Slovenia, there is a saying – Tiha voda brege dere – which roughly translated says, "It is the quiet waters that move mountains." This phrase is used to illustrate how those who are silent have potential to make the big changes in the world. As youth, we are often ignored, but we believe that our voices should be taken into account in a global discussion about climate justice. In this way, we may become the metaphorical pebbles who will start the ripples of awareness and change. In a survey of 1675 students from 23 countries, we discovered that youth around the world collectively believe that they do NOT have an influence on their country's response to climate change. If the overwhelming majority of children feel this way, 1 something needs to change fast. #Decolonize: #Decarbonize Throughout the project, we learned about power and the connections between colonization and climate change, including whose voices are included and whose voices are ignored. When we started research on the project, a lot of us did not get the connection between "decolonization" and "decarbonization." The most obvious connection, which we drew intuitively, was that colonization is linked with industrialization which in turn leads to increased carbonization. When we started digging deeper, however, we discovered that colonization is still very much a part of today's society, as seen in current political, social, and economic issues, which are deeply connected to our planet's climate issues. Furthermore, colonization results in colonized people being treated as second-class citizens, their opinions being ignored in current climate conversations. The Student Writing Team in Germany 1 See Appendix: Survey Results 2

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