English Script Request

-Well our next speaker is known in nearly every galaxy as an acting legend, but he will be the first to tell you that planet Earth is the only home we have. I'm very glad to introduce him as a tireless champion for conservation and an outspoken climate change activist. Please welcome the executive chair of Conservation International and recent recipient of the prestigious Founders Award, Harrison Ford.
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-Thank you! Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. You're here, I'm here, because we care... not just for today... but we care passionately for the future. We know we only have the possibility of avoiding a looming climate catastrophe if people like us refuse to give up. Conservation International has been working for thirty years to protect nature for people. I've been on their board for over twenty years. We've done some good work in that time. Working with others, many of whom are in this room today. We've accomplished a lot. But all of that is at risk if we don't change the path that we're on today. The future of humanity is at stake. While you work to meet the challenge of climate change, I beg of you... Don't forget nature. Because today, because today, the destruction of nature accounts for more global emissions than all the cars and trucks in the world. We can put solar panels on every house, we can turn every car into an electric vehicle... But as long as Sumatra burns, we will have failed. So long as the Amazon's great forests are slashed and burnt, so long as the protected lands of tribal people, indigenous people are allowed to be encroached upon, so long as wetlands and bog pits are destroyed, our climate goals will remain out of reach, and we will be out of time. If we don't stop the destruction of our natural world, nothing else will matter. Why? Because protecting and restoring forests, mangroves, wetlands, these huge dense carbon sinks, represent at least thirty percent of what needs to be done to avoid catastrophic warming. It is at this time the only feasible solution for absorbing carbon on a global scale. Simply put, if we don't protect nature, we can't protect ourselves. This...
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This is what we need to do. We need to include nature in every corporate, state, and national climate goal. Put in place the plans, the timetables, to meet those goals. Invest in mangroves, and tropical forests, in the same way invested in renewable energy. Work to end the destruction of these ecosystems. Commit to the effort in the next decade to secure them for the future. Pursue research in reforestation, like we pursue research in carbon capture and storage.
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Set a goal! To cut costs and increase scale dramatically. Empower indigenous communities to use their knowledge, their history, their imagination, our science to save their heritage and their lands. Respect and ensure their rights.
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Educate and elect leaders who believe in science and understand the importance of protecting nature. Stop, for God's sake, the denigration of science. Stop giving power to people who don't believe in science, or worse than that pretend they don't believe in science for their own self-interest.
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They know who they are. We know who they are! We are all, rich or poor, powerful or powerless, we will all suffer the effects of climate change and ecosystem destruction. And we are facing what is quickly becoming the greatest moral crisis of our time. That those least responsible will bear the greatest costs. So never forget who you're fighting for. It's the fisherman in Columbia, the fisherman in Somalia, who wonders where their next catch is coming from and wonders why their government can't protect them from a factory fishing from across the world. It's the mother in Philippines who's worried that the next big storm is going to rip her infant out of her arms. It's the people right here in California, people on the East Coast, people in California who are fleeing from unprecedented fires, people on the East Coast who are facing the worst storms in recorded history. It's our own country, our own community, our own families... This is the core truth. If we are to survive on this planet, the only home any of us will ever know, for our climate, for our security, for our future, we need nature. Now. More than ever.
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Because nature doesn't need people. People need nature. So let's... Let's turn off our phones, let's roll up our sleeves, let's kick this monster's arse.
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Because nature doesn't need people. People need nature. So let's... Let's turn off our phones, let's roll up our sleeves, let's kick this monster's arse.
(Applause)