Artist Statement

When you're a poet, it's great to get commissioned to write a piece on an issue that's important to you. I've wanted to write a poem on climate change for a while, because it's such an immediate universal issue. When Al Gore's Climate Reality Project approached me, all the world fell into place as I did research on 'Earthrise', our planet's most famous photo. In this poem, I hope that, like the photo, we can look back on ourselves and our planet and be inspired to protect it, and in so doing, protect ourselves

EARTHRISE  

On Christmas Eve, 1964, astronaut Bill Anders 
Snapped a photo of the earth
As Apollo 8 orbited the moon.
Those three guys 
Were surprised
To see from their eyes
Our planet looked like an earthrise
A blue orb hovering over the moon’s gray horizon, 
with deep oceans and silver skies. 

It was our world’s first glance at itself 
Our first chance to see a shared reality, 
A declared stance and a commonality; 

A glimpse into our planet’s mirror,
And as threats drew nearer,
Our own urgency became clearer,
As we realize that we hold nothing dearer 
than this floating body we all call home. 

We’ve known
That we’re caught in the throes
Of climactic changes some say
Will just go away,
While some simply pray
To survive another day;
For it is the obscure, the oppressed, the poor, 
Who when the disaster
Is declared done,
Still suffer more than anyone. 

Climate change is the single greatest challenge of our time, 

Of this, you’re certainly aware.
It’s saddening, but I cannot spare you
From knowing an inconvenient fact, because
It’s getting the facts straight that gets us to act and not to wait. 

So I tell you this not to scare you, 
But to prepare you, to dare you 
To dream a different reality, 

Where despite disparities
We all care to protect this world,
This riddled blue marble, this little true marvel 
To muster the verve and the nerve
To see how we can serve
Our planet. You don’t need to be a politician
To make it your mission to conserve, to protect, 
To preserve that one and only home
That is ours,
To use your unique power
To give next generations the planet they deserve. 

We are demonstrating, creating, advocating 
We heed this inconvenient truth, because we need to be anything but lenient
With the future of our youth. 

And while this is a training,
in sustaining the future of our planet, 
There is no rehearsal. The time is 
Now
Now
Now, 
Because the reversal of harm,
And protection of a future so universal 
Should be anything but controversial. 

So, earth, pale blue dot 
We will fail you not. 

Just as we chose to go to the moon 
We know it’s never too soon
To choose hope.
We choose to do more than cope 
With climate change 
We choose to end it—
We refuse to lose.
Together we do this and more
Not because it’s very easy or nice
But because it is necessary,
Because with every dawn we carry
the weight of the fate of this celestial body orbiting a star. 
And as heavy as that weight sounded, it doesn’t hold us down, 
But it keeps us grounded, steady, ready, 
Because an environmental movement of this size 
Is simply another form of an earthrise. 

To see it, close your eyes.
Visualize that all of us leaders in this room
and outside of these walls or in the halls, all
of us changemakers are in a spacecraft,
Floating like a silver raft
in space, and we see the face of our planet anew.
We relish the view;
We witness its round green and brilliant blue,
Which inspires us to ask deeply, wholly:
What can we do?
Open your eyes.
Know that the future of
this wise planet
Lies right in sight:
Right in all of us. Trust
this earth uprising.
All of us bring light to exciting solutions never tried before
For it is our hope that implores us, at our uncompromising core, 
To keep rising up for an earth more than worth fighting for. 

About the Artist

In 2017, Amanda Gorman made history by being named the first National Youth Poet Laureate. Her poetry has won her invitations to the Obama White House and commissions to perform for Lin-Manuel Miranda, Al Gore, Secretary Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, and more. She has spoken across the country, from the Library of Congress to the U.N. Social Good Summit to TED-Ed. Currently a junior at Harvard, she writes for the New York Times in The Edit newsletter. A native Angeleno, she's running for President in 2036.

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