Historic Time Travel Chat Show Scripts

1. Rio+20 / Beyond 2050 by David Woollcombe Bare stage – two chairs set up, with a coffee table, interview style. The Floor Manager, comes on with a clip board.

FLOOR MANAGER: “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host for ‘Beyond 2050’, Alex Rifkin’!!!

ALEX RIFKIN:

(entering) Good morning everyone, and welcome to another edition of ‘Beyond 2050’. Technology has sure come a long way and today we are going to put it to the ultimate test. Yes, this morning we are looking at Time Travel! We are looking forward to 2050 – and we’re going to bring one of you – Yes! One of YOU!!! – back from the future to tell you us all about it and why a concept known as “Green Growth” developed at the Rio+20 Summit is so very important to your future. So – how old will you be in 2050? – Oh dear, need help with the math’s, eh?! Well – 2051 minus 2012 leaves – (40!) – Thank you!! How old are you now? – (gives Age). So 40 + (the age given) = (60+) Think about it! You might be a Grand-mother/father – you might be a politician – prime minister! You could be a film star – a multi-millionaire.

But – to get this machine to work – we need your energy: so – can you stand up and say with me:

ALEX RIFKIN and AUDIENCE: A-woompah – woompah!! A-woompah – woompah!! A-woompah – woompah!!

ALEX RIFKIN:

Louder!! – and sway side-to-side with your hands in the air – locked together, tight!

That’s right – go for it!

AUDIENCE:

A-woompah – woompah!! A-woompah – woompah!! A-woompah – woompah!!

ALEX RIFKIN:

Louder!!!!

AUDIENCE:

A-woompah – woompah!! A-woompah – woompah!! A-woompah – woompah!!

ALEX RIFKIN:

I think you did it!! (Listens on the earpiece…) Yes! – my producer says that the experiment has worked. They have managed to track down a member of [your] Class of the [your] School in 2010 – our very special guest for today from YOUR future, [CHOOSE A NAME!!]! Give him/her a big hand!! (The Visitor enters, looking just as s/he does today but extremely elegantly dressed)

ALEX RIFKIN:

Welcome to the show! – And my! – How young you look for sixty! How do you do it?

[First Visitor]:

Well, we all eat very healthily. No more smoke and pollution; no more rubbish anywhere. I feel as fit as a teenager! And I’m doing really well! After I got my degree in Green Business Studies and Sustainable Political Economy…

ALEX RIFKIN:

I’m sorry – to many long words for this time in the morning! What’s that??

[First Visitor]:

Green Growth! Survival! Surely even you, Alex, have heard a little about ‘Building a Green Economy’?

ALEX RIFKIN:

Sorry – I don’t think so:

[FIRST VISITOR]:

Dear oh dear oh dear! Do any of you guys know about Sustainable Development?

ALEX RIFKIN:

Oh yes! We do know about that, don’t we? (asks the audience) You don’t sound very sure? Some for all forever? Ring any bells??

[First Visitor]:

That’s right: Some for all forever. Making sure that our planet lasts long enough to support future generations of people who will be born here.

ALEX RIFKIN:

Yes, yes – we all know about that, climate change, melting ice caps and the rest: but that doesn’t really affect us here, does it? I mean, the sun comes up every morning – it’s a lovely spring day: flowers are blooming! Everything’s fine!…

[First Visitor]:

Until it isn’t – and by then it’s too late. Look at that slide – you had ice caps shrinking in size and volume, raising the level of the sea. But worse, you had peak oil – fast diminishing reserves of coal, oil and natural gas which your entire civilisation is based upon. If we hadn’t started working to transition to a green growth economy right then – back in 2012 – I don’t think we would have made it…

ALEX RIFKIN:

But – looking at you, we clearly did! So – in what ways is the world in 2051 a better place than today’s?

[First Visitor]:

Hundreds – THOUSANDS! – of ways!! We have very little poverty now. All the people in Africa and Asia have food, clean water among other things. Almost everyone can read, and there are enough doctors for every one.

ALEX RIFKIN:

That sounds amazing because in 2012 loads of people died from hunger and dirty water. So HOW did you do it? (Slide population)

[First Visitor]:

Well – to me, and many others,rocketing population growth was the first thing to tackle. Back in 2012 – we’d just hit 7 billion, and 8 billion was only 13 years away: we had to stop that growth.

ALEX RIFKIN:

How did you do this?

[First Visitor]:

Female education and green growth: once economies started to grow again, and women had respect and dignity in their societies, they didn’t feel obliged to have so many children – and population rates slowed dramatically: so much so that now our problem is population decline: we don’t have enough people to do all the green jobs we’ve created in some places!

ALEX RIFKIN:

But you’re still about 9 billion people (Visitor nods) So – how do you feed them all?

[FIRST VISITOR]:

Again Green Growth! It was what we called “Resource Efficiency”: getting the maximum amount of crops from the smallest amount of land through organic farming, and green farming techniques.

ALEX RIFKIN:

What about fish? We hear that fish have just about run out in the North Atlantic.

[First Visitor]:

Yes – look how our parents generation decimated our stocks of wild fish. Almost half our fish stocks crashed or over-fished by 2012 – and the crazy thing was: governments were paying their fishermen to over-fish! So – at Rio+20 we put a stop to all that, created exclusion zones all over the planet – and, look, you see? As soon as you create some protected areas where fish can breed in peace, the stocks recover very fast.

ALEX RIFKIN:

So – every thing’s pretty much hunky-dory up there in 2050?

[First Visitor]:

Oh – I wouldn’t say that! We’re human – and there are some pretty greedy, unbearable people around, just like I guess there always were. But – when I became Prime Minister…

ALEX RIFKIN:

Oh! You became Prime minister??!! How amazing…

[First Visitor]:

Yes…I was… and I started to deal with the fact that, in many countries, the people’s voice was not heard: everything was top down – decided by elites: I wanted to be sure that every one felt ownership of a decision – and, with the help of online referenda, that worked very well.

ALEX RIFKIN:

You certainly seemed to have sorted out a lot of problems. And it all started at this Rio+20 Summit that none of us have heard about??

[First Visitor]:

Yes! – suddenly the leaders came together in what is arguably the most beautiful city in the world, and agreed: “We have to save this beautiful planet for future

generations, and we will do it by setting firm Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by a certain date. And ALL countries committed to Green Growth as the only form of growth that was viable: brown, polluting fossil-fuel powered growth was all but outlawed!

ALEX RIFKIN:

Brilliant. We’ll have to watch what happens down there in Rio later this year. But, tell me: what did you do about energy? You showed us that oil and coal were running out – but how did you keep the lights on without it??

[First Visitor]:

Well, in my Green Growth Studies all those years ago, we looked at a variety of different solutions: Concentrated Solar Power was an obvious one we had to expand.

There was a ton of investment in that. But I plumped for TURNIP juice

ALEX RIFKIN:

Turnip Juice!?

[First Visitor]:

Yes -Turnip juice! Which amazingly enough – with some treatment – could produce an extremely efficient biofuel. Cheaper than Algae-based biofuel and much easier to handle and manufacture.

ALEX RIFKIN:

Brilliant!! Turnip Juice!!!! So – finding alternative energy was your greatest achievement?

[First Visitor]:

Actually No, Alex – I think the greatest achievement of our generation {Slide TWELVE} was creating peace and learning to look after one another. Countries helped support one another so that everyone had the opportunity to go to school and have hospital care too.

ALEX RIFKIN:

Looking after the earth and all the people and animals – both now and in the future?

[First Visitor]:

Exactly: Some – for – all – forever.

ALEX RIFKIN:

Right! Great! Thank you! Now we’ve got a short break. When we come back, we are going to push the ‘Alternative Future’ button – and we will see how things might have turned out for our guest from 2051 had we NOT achieved that big breakthrough at Rio+20. See you after the Commercials! (EXIT)

{VIDEO – Slide FOURTEEN} – Commentary: Next time you go out shopping, remember: You Have a Choice!

• Why not buy Fair Trade? Coffee for example: instead of what you pay going to the big corporations, the farmers get a fair wage for his crop. This allows him to educate his children, get good health care, enough food to eat, clean water – all in all a better life! All because you choose Products with Fair Trade brand mark.

• What about using charity shops! A great way to recycle clothes you don’t need and to buy good quality clothes really cheap! And the best thing – all the profit goes to charity.

• And don’t throw away your vegetable waste! Compost them! That way you get free manure for the garden, reduce the amount of rubbish going into the landfills. Everybody wins!

FLOOR MANAGER: “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back your host for ‘Beyond 2050’, Alex Rifkin’.

ALEX RIFKIN:

Thank you, thank you! Welcome back to the second half of our show, where we welcome a guest from the Alternative Future! (Listening on the Ear-piece) – IF – we can get the technology to work! Bear with us! Yes? YES!!!! (urging the audience) Keep it going! Punch the air – Sway!

AUDIENCE:

A-woompah – woompah!! A-woompah – woompah!! A-woompah – woompah!!

ALEX RIFKIN:

It’s working!! (Bangs and crashes, honks and whirrs) Stop!! It worked!! – Will you welcome please, our guest from the alternative future 2051, [Second Visitor]:Thank you!

The same girl as in part one, comes in, dressed in rags, covered in plastic wearing a mask over her face. Her hair is all over the place – she looks dreadful.

[Second Visitor]:

Err. Wow! Where am I? Why is the air so clean here? You must have one of those really expensive Oxygen Ventilators.

ALEX RIFKIN:

Oxygen Ventilators.

[Second Visitor]:

[Removing the mask and taking deep breathes.] Very nice. I was wondering how you all were sitting here without your masks on.

ALEX RIFKIN:

Oxygen Masks? What are you talking about? You look terrible! What happened!?

[Second Visitor]:

What happened? I’ll tell you what happened!!!! Everything – Everything we did was wrong and I think we all knew it. You see – we had this big Green Growth Summit in Rio back in 2012, and we were all supposed to transition to sustainable technologies!

But we didn’t! We just sat around like fat pigs in an orgy of consumerism – buying everything we wanted. Eating everything we wanted. It was just so much easier to carry on doing things as we had always done them – putting petrol in our cars, heating our homes with coal and oil – turning up the air conditioning in summer, and the heat in winter. We didn’t want to change – and by the time we realized our mistake, it was too late!

ALEX RIFKIN:

We’ve brought you back to 2010 – your childhood. We want to know every thing that happened and how it could all have gone so terribly wrong?

[Second Visitor]:

Well – global warming for a start!

ALEX RIFKIN:

Global Warming? What’s that?

[Second Visitor]:

The way that fumes from all our cars. And factories were trapping the heat in but not letting it out, this was warming up the earth. We could see what was happening – even back in 2010.

ALEX RIFKIN:

YEAH… (Looking at the slide)

[Second Visitor]:

The glaciers were all melting, big chunks of the Antarctic were breaking off – The result was obvious.

ALEX RIFKIN:

Yes. Look …

[Second Visitor]:

True….At the time, we thought it wasn’t that important – but then, as millions and millions of us had to move away from coastal regions, and whole cities were flooded, it wasn’t funny at all. It was a global tragedy!

ALEX RIFKIN:

It must have cost billions to clean up.

[Second Visitor]:

Yes, and it happened all over the world – whole towns, whole cities flooded out – Millions of people died – it was dreadful, dreadful!!

ALEX RIFKIN:

My, that is terrible, but why, didn’t any one do anything about global warming??

[Second Visitor]:

Because we couldn’t be bothered and we didn’t care. We just went on polluting, using up our world without any concern about the future. As a generation, I am afraid, Alex – we blew it!

ALEX RIFKIN:

So, if you were given a second chance what would you change?

[Second Visitor]:

Everything!! I wouldn’t have been so greedy for me! We thought that having more and more things –having the latest trainers or Play Station would make us happy. But it didn’t. We just created piles and piles of junk. Have a look at this. It all came from our homes…

ALEX RIFKIN:

Ohm…looks at it all – it’s disgusting. To think it all came out of our homes…

[Second Visitor]:

And it got worse. Pretty soon they ran out of room –then they started shipping it off to other countries

ALEX RIFKIN:

That’s terrible

[Second Visitor]:

Well, it went on and on. Consuming more – creating waste – needing more and more oil. And when started running out of resources, we started wars, killing millions. I cannot believe how stupid we were! People are such idiots, it’s really a shame….

ALEX RIFKIN:

Well. I am really sorry – (aside to the audience) goodness she’s so gloomy! I don’t think we’re all idiots, do you? (repeat, do you? – do you? – getting them to say “NO!!”) Well: (visitor’s name!) thank you very much for coming on the show. I wish you all the best! But now you have to go back!

[Second Visitor]:

No!! Please – please let me stay. Don’t send me back!! PLEEEESE!

ALEX RIFKIN:

Sorry! You make your bed. You sleep in it. You make your future – you live in it!

There are no second chances!!

[Second Visitor]:

(screams!) NO!!! – You must let me come back to 2012 and start all over again: we’ll make a success of Rio+20 – and everything will be right again!

ALEX RIFKIN:

Not possible – we have a deal with the Time Travel Association. No Exceptions.

Anyway, you could never come back to being the age you were in 2010. Why don’t you just go quietly and give a message to your young self, sitting here so that – maybe – s/he will end up with a better future!

[Second Visitor]:

Oh, OK! Thank you anyway. Listen, listen all of you!! Other generations had Everest to climb, the moon to walk on! Your generation has just one challenge – to take only what YOU NEED! You have a chance to turn things around. The future isn’t so far away. I wish you luck. I wish you very great luck – and now I leave you to go back to my miserable life, trying to work out with my children and grand-children how we can save the planet from the disaster course my generation set it on.

EXIT - s/he creeps off miserably

ALEX RIFKIN:

Well – that about wraps it up for this morning. You’ve been a great audience. And remember – you can choose your future. Sustainable or Unsustainable Development.

And don’t wait around for your parents or teachers to make those changes for you: “You have to be the change you want to see in the world!” Go for it! Thank you!

THE END

2. My World and Me Cast: Captain Kwickfix The World The People Narrator (this can be split into several parts) Equipment & Props: PowerPoint Visuals (if possible, but the presentation can work without them) 2 x chairs ‘Planet’ T-Shirt or Hat ‘People’ T-shirt or Hat Captain Kwickfix Costume Magazines, cans, bottles, sunglasses for People Recycled pencils etc for narrator.

Setting:

The stage, or floor space, is bare; the chairs are set up down stage centre at a distance of about three metres from each other. If possible, the characters should enter from behind a curtain or some corner where they can be effectively off-stage. The Narrator stands to the side of stage, at a podium if there is one - speaking into a microphone.

Image: Be The Change.

Explain to the students what is going to happen:the presentations, the workshops, the goal by the end of the day to get them to all sign up to the lifestyle contracts. Explain that we’re going to talk about consumption – ask pupils if they know what that means. Using things up and buying more.

Image: The World Narrator: We are going to tell you a story, an everyday tale of two little people struggling to get along in a hard old universe. Will you welcome please The People (People enters takes a bow) And the World (enters takes a bow) Narrator: Now (name of student) is playing The World.

Image: Beautiful world.

I want you to imagine him/her representing several million cubic kilometres of land, sea, mountains, rivers, forests, meadows, elephants, ants, tigers and several billion other living things that make up our “Environment”! (name of student) is playing the People.

Image: People Narrator: 6 Billion of us, human beings like you and me.

We’re going to split the audience into two. This half of you are with World and this half with People. (address the half with the world) When we talk about what’s happening in the world (name of world ) will look happy or sad. You’ve got to watch them carefully and see how they feel. So if I say “Saving Energy is good for the world” – all you lot are going to be doing the wave with World. (address the half with the people) When we talk about what’s happening with the people (name of people) will look happy or sad. You’ve got to

watch them carefully and see how they feel. If I say “ Driving cars wherever we want is good for people then you lot are going to wave with “People.”

So, now we know what we’re doing and thinking about what is good for people or the world, let’s go on.

World: Well I’d like to say something. People – human beings always get their voice heard but who cares about what the World feels? When do I get a voice.? – Did you know that human beings are consuming almost half the good things that I/our world produces – the food, the trees, the animals. ) Image: Population Growth.

And every day, there are about 80,000 more of them – 80,000 new babies!!

That’s good for the people – People wave. Not so good for me - the world (thumbs down).

Captain Kwikfix: (leaping out from behind the Curtain – or coming out from the corner) Hi! My name is Captain KwikFix and I have a solution to every problem. You can trust me!! Ha, ha! Now this population problem – very simple! Eat some people! World is short on food – long on people! Eat some people and bring the world and the people back into balance.

Narrator: Now – I think that is an absolutely HORRIBLE idea. What do you think? Any one here think that is a good idea?? Thought not – go back to your corner, Captain Kwikfix. We can’t eat people, but we have to try and slow down population growth.

[Captain Kwikfix slinks back into the corner, muttering to himself] Image: Global Warming.

Narrator: Another one of the hardest problems between the world and people is to do with Global Warming.

Who knows what global warming is?

World: Yes - I can tell you I am getting hotter and hotter. It doesn’t feel good. People don’t care. Oh no, people keep polluting my air, drive around in cars, fly off on holiday, keep their houses toasty warm in winter and airconditioned cool in summer. Good for those people who don’t care – People wave but bad for me - our world! Thumbs down [People put sunglasses on] Narrator: But wait a minute! World might have the last laugh here. Do you know what happens when our world gets warmer? [Wait for answers!] –

that’s right!

Image: Floods.

The ice caps melt, the seas rise and flood our coastal towns; the climate changes – we get more hurricanes and tornadoes – and it becomes harder and harder for the people to find a safe place to live!

Image: Global warming oven.

World: That’s not good for me - our world –thumbs down And climate change will be really, really bad for the people! Thumbs down [People take sunglasses off] Captain Kwikfix: (leaping out) No, no! It’s not a problem – We can fix this really simply! Magic Carpets!

Image: Magic Carpets.

Captain Kwikfix: Just give everyone a magic carpet – and they can fly round everywhere like Aladdin. No Pollution, no nasty fumes! Just the quickest, easiest way of traveling about the place. Really fun, too!

Narrator: Captain – Aladdin is a fairy tale! Magic carpets don’t really fly!

[Ask audience if they have ever seen a magic flying carpet] You are soooooo silly! (pause) If you can’t come up with a serious idea just go back to your corner! We can’t just bury our cars and stop using aeroplanes, we just have to find ways of getting about that doesn’t cause pollution.

[Captain Kwikfix slinks back into the corner, muttering to himself] Image: Mother Earth Narrator: Many people think of the earth as our Mother – we talk a lot about Mother Nature! But look how we treat our Mother Earth?!

Image: Landfill site.

Narrator: On average we throw away the equivalent of half a ton of rubbish per person per year here in the UK and they mostly end up in landfill sites – the places we dump our rubbish.

(During this People shoves magazine, plastic cups, cans etc at World.)

The richer we get, the more we consume and the more we throw away.

Fine for the people who don’t care– People wave.

Terrible for the world! (thumbs down)

Image: Landfill Map. World: Look at this map. These dots are all landfill sites and there are more and more of them. Do you want all our land taken up by landfill sites?

Speaking as the world I can tell you I am sick of them. They are not good for me and I hate them.

Captain Kwikfix: (leaping out) Excuse me?! May I?!

Narrator: (shouting) We’ve already heard your ideas.

Captain Kwikfix: Don’t shout at me please – but I really think we can fix this one really easily! Why throw this stuff away – why not melt it down or put it on the compost heap and use it again? That way, we could make some money out of it!

Narrator: Now that’s not such a silly idea, Captain KwikFix! We are actually starting to do this – recycling our paper, our vegetable waste, our bottles and cans.... But we have to do a lot, lot more if the planet is going to wake up and be happy again!

(World starts to hand back recycled items to people)

Image: Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Narrator: We have to start Reducing the amount of waste we create, reusing as many things as we can and recycling wherever possible. We also have to do something called ‘closing the loop’ because it’s no good making recycled things unless we actually buy them so we also have to start buying things like this recycled pen. (show pen and stuff) See, it’s made out of recycled paper, and we also have to make sure we use things like recycled paper at school. Something else we can recycle is clothes.

Image: Ethical Fashion.

How many of you have ever bought second-hand, or recycled clothes? You should try it some time? Much cheaper and it van be really cool! Get down to your local charity shop and see what they have! You can always take some of your things you don’t need and not waste them by dumping them in the landfill. So recycled fashion?

Good for the people (People wave) and good for the world (world wave).

[People and World both happy. Captain Kwikfix smiles proudly from centre stage!]

Narrator:

Thank you, Captain – now let’s get on.

[Captain Kwikfix exits with a bow]

Another major problem for people is that they need to eat and the only source of food is My World! But over the years people have got greedy.

Image: Fruit.

People want the same fresh fruit and vegetables all the year round.

They want it cheap and they want it now. To have what they want when they want. It’s called choice and people think that’s great.

They think it’s good for the people (People wave).

Image: Square watermelons.

World: Square watermelons. I ask you. People (indicate - ) want to have everything to suit them. So if it’s easier to pack square melons – that’s what they want. They want the shiniest fruit – with not even the tiniest mark. Do you know how they get them to look so perfect? (ask) Well I tell you. They spray me all over. Horrible chemicals. I hate them too.

They’re not even very good for People either. Why aren’t chemicals good for you (ask People – ask audience) Explain about water, fish, clean air.

Pollution. And the other thing is that in order to have fresh fruit and beg all the year round they end up flying or shipping it thousands of miles around to get what they want.

Image: Picture of airplane.

This causes more pollution. Is that good for me? (ask audience)………

That’s right it’s not good for me and It’s not good for the people. (Thumbs down) [People and Planet feeling sick. Captain Kwikfix bounds back on – his eyes bright with an idea!]

Captain Kwikfix: Yes! Yes! I know how to fix this one too!! It’s really easy! We learn to eat the earth!

Image: Mud pies.

Captain Kwikfix: Mud Pies! I remember them as a child – they were delicious! Plenty of mud everywhere. No one would need to starve.

Narrator: Sorry, sorry! – He’s going mad again! But – somewhere in that muddled brain of his, there is the germ of a good idea.

Narrator: If people ate more vegetables grown in farms near where they live they wouldn’t have to fly in so much food. Then we could cut down on Food miles. The amount of miles food has to travel.

But there is another thing– who produces our food?

Ask audience The farmer, the fisherman, the plantation owner. In many of the world’s poorest countries, farmers barely earn enough to eat and bring up their families.

Image: Fairtrade logo.

Narrator: Who knows what this sign says? (Ask what they know). Fair Trade means that the farmers who grow the crops get a fair deal. A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. Right now a lot of money goes to the large companies who want to have cheaper and cheaper food for their customers.

So how is the farmer supposed to live and to take care of the earth and the environment?

Captain Kwikfix: Lock up the Greedy Fat Cats and throw away the key.

Get ‘em out the way and let the farmer get a decent wage!

Image: Fairtrade farmers.

Narrator: Well, we don’t have to be that extreme, Captain! We just have to persuade them that shoppers care about how farmers and workers are treated and make sure that people start to buy “FAIR TRADE” Ask audience: Do you know what kind of products you can buy that are Fair Trade?

Well by buying these goods you will be helping both the people and the earth/the environment, because the farmers will be able to take care of the earth better. [People and World are both happy. Thumbs up) Narrator: Now everything we have been talking about is how to live more sustainably. So that People and the world are working together. This idea of being “sustainable” is quite complicated, but if you sustain something it continues. So we think the easiest way to explain it is Some for All Forever.

Image: Some For All Forever.

Narrator: It means finding “SOME – FOR ALL – FOREVER!” – say it with me: “SOME – FOR ALL – FOR EVER!” Some things, for everyone, forever and ever.

Image: Pie chart.

World: Speaking as an outsider it looks more like lots for some of you and don’t worry about the rest. You people just don’t know how to share.

Image: Some For All Forever.

Narrator: That’s probably quite true. Because if we are going to live together we have to think about other people, about the world and what we can do ourselves.

We’ve only got one world and that is why we are are going to work together to prepare our own Lifestyle Contracts so we can live in a way that is more sustainable, so that Image: heart.

Narrator: My World and Me can live in harmony.

[During this speech People and Planet hug each other]

Captain Kwikfix: See, See!! That’s the best fix of all – making the planet love the people as much as the people love the planet. Thank you! Thank you very much!

3. AMBASSADOR SCRIPT AMBASSADOR PRESENTATION SCRIPT TWO PEOPLE PRESENTATION WITH OVER-HEADS : INTERVIEWING PERSON FROM THE FUTURE : 1ST OH : PEACE CHILD INT. BE THE CHANGE! AMBASSADOR PROGRAMME Amb. 1: Good morning everyone. My name is ………… and I come from ………………[school / institution].

Amb. 2: My name is ………… and I come from ………………[school / institution].

We are a part of an organisation called Peace Child Int.—a charity based in Herts. We are ambassadors to their Be The Change! Programme. We are here today to talk to you about something called Sustainable Development.

Amb. 1: Hands up how many of you have heard of these words before. Well, the ones who haven’t –not to worry. Hopefully by the end of this presentation, you will have an idea about what Sustainable Development means.

Amb. 2: This is a fun presentation and it takes the form of an Education Programme called ‘Beyond 2050’. There is a very special guest who might come to the show. And there are a few overheads that go along with the presentation. So sit back and enjoy the show!

Well, first I’d need a volunteer to read out something for me.

[Get a kid to read out the following on your cue.]

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the host of ‘Beyond 2050’, Alex Rifkin’.

[Enter Amb. 1 as Alex Rifkin—the host of Beyond 2050.]

Alex: Good morning everyone, and welcome to another episode of ‘Beyond 2050’.

Technology has sure come a long way and today we are going to put it to the ultimate test. Yes, we are looking at Time Travel, and trying to bring on a very special guest in our show—who is from the year 2075!! Hopefully the experiment that’s going on back stage will work and we’ll see the result very soon. Our guest is supposed to be a very learned and respected Professor of his time and he will be helping us get a picture of our future.

The show has begun and he should have been here by now. My producer says that they are running the experiment and that he’ll be here in a while.

Well, let me tell you what are we going to talk to the Professor mainly about. Its going to be about Sustainable Development and its importance in our future.

2nd OH: WHAT DID YOU DO LAST SATURDAY? Lets start with this simple question.

What did you last Saturday? Out shopping, were you?! Got hungry? Had a hamburger, nice hey, bet you left the mess everywhere! Then you went back shopping; of course you did; an umbrella perhaps? A pair of trainers and make-up mmmmm- great colours such a wide range to choose from, but may be not for the boys.

But I wonder, did you ever stop to ask yourself: IS THIS SUSTAINABLE?? Can we carry on consuming so much and still have enough left for our future. That’s what we

are going to find out from the Professor as soon as he gets here.

ALL RIGHT, my producer says that the experiment has worked. They have managed to get the Professor from the year 2075. Ladies and gentlemen please welcome Professor X. [Enter Prof. X—in dirty cloths, bad hair, with something to protect his face from UV rays and an Oxygen mask to breath clean air.]

Alex: Welcome to our show Beyond 2050 Professor.

Prof.: Thank you Alex. Sorry I’ am late. The problem is that we are out of Oil, so we have to walk wherever we go, and avoiding the toxic landfill sites by the time I reached the experiment site, I was late.

Alex: That’s all right Prof. We are glad that you are here.

Prof: Hmm, the air is so clean here. You must have one of those expensive Oxygen Ventilators fixed in here. [Removing the mask and taking deep breathes.] Very nice. I was wondering how you all were sitting here without your masks on.

Alex: It’s our natural air Prof. It’s the year 2003 you see. The air is not as bad.

Prof.: That’s really good. But unfortunately by the year 2075, it is not going to be such clean an atmosphere.

Alex: These are the things that we want to learn from you today Prof. How do we stop our world from being destroyed? How can Sustainable Development help us achieve this?

Prof: Yes. Sustainable Development is the way to go.

Alex: So tell us Prof. What exactly is this thing called Sustainable Development?

3rd OH: DEFINITION OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Prof: We generally say that Sustainable Development means: “MEETING THE NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE ALIVE TODAY, WITHOUT COMPRAMISING THE ABILITY OF THE FUTURE GENERATIONS TO COME, TO MEET THEIR OWN NEEDS.” ALEX: Sorry Professor – but could you make that a bit simpler for me and our audience here.

Prof: Yes. Sustainable Development simply means to leave behind the resources that we use for all the generations to come, forever.

4th OH: SOME FOR ALL FOREVER. So in just 4 words it would be SOME-FOR ALL-FOREVER. ALEX: I get that- SOME FOR ALL FOREVER. [Getting everyone to repeat it.] Can we all say that…Some For All Forever.

Excellent. So Prof. Could you also tell us as to why is it so important?

5th OH: THE 3 PILLARS Prof: Well if we think of our human world having three main support pillars —they would be…

SOCIETY- that’s to do with all the people, all of us here, everyone in this World.

ECONOMY- that’s to do with Money, which we all need, to buy food or water or electricity, etc.

The last one is ENVIRONMENT – which is everything around us-that we live in-and it’s the one that’s looking a little shaky at the moment.

ALEX: SOCIETY, ECONOMY AND ENVIRONMENT. [Getting everyone to repeat it.]

Can we all repeat that? Excellent!

But Prof, here the Environment pillar is looking a little shaky. Is that the reason why you have so many problems by 2075?

Prof: Well, that’s how it got started Alex. But if a problem affects one pillar directly, it soon will affect the others too.

But talking about the problems that led to our situation by 2075, one of the 1 st things that comes to mind is the World over population problem.

6TH OH: WORLD POPULATION As we see here, the world population has grown at an alarming rate. With too many people, come other related problems. Like we couldn’t provide basic education for all people, thus a lot of people were unemployed. More over we couldn’t feed the growing population. Once we ran out of oil, we couldn’t import any more food from different countries, as transportation became too expensive. th

7 OH: FARMING LAND [COW] And as we see here, the amount of farming land that was available to grow food and feed people was contently reducing. By the year 2050 came, we had twice the number of people compared to 1980 and less land to grow food for them.

Alex: That must have been horrible Prof. That is such a big problem! But if you were running out of land, why couldn’t you eat more seafood.

Prof: I wish that everyone could afford it Alex. Seafood is such a rear luxury now, that just the richest of the rich can afford to buy it.

8TH OH: FISH CATCH As we see here, our fish catch started to drop constantly. People kept on taking out more and more fish from the sea, not leaving any behind to grow. Thus we were out of our fish very soon.

9TH OH: FORESTS Then everyone started to cut down the Forests to get land to grow food. Soon we lost all our forests, which eventually resulted in more Climate Change and a lot of our animals became extinct too. Nobody thought about how important it was to preserve our forests and its wild life.

Alex: Did you know that as we speak, we are losing our forests at an incredible rate of TWO FOOTBALL FIELDS EVERY MINUTE? Prof: That sure is horrible. Could someone tell me why you think your forests are so important and why we must not cut them down at this rate?

[ALEX HELPS GET ANSWERS.] Prof: That’s very good. So you must all work together and stop your forests from being totally destroyed.

Alex: So Prof-with all your forests lost, there must be so much of carbon in your atmosphere!

10TH OH : GREENHOUSE EFFECT Prof: Yes Alex, and with so many cars being driven and so many industries everywhere, more and more Carbon was released into the atmosphere. This Carbon acts like a glass in a green house, lets the heat get into our atmosphere but doesn’t let it go out. This is what’s known as the Green House Effect or Global Warming.

This effect has gone so bad by the year 2075 that we cant walk about without wearing this protection on our faces. But I think it’s all right here.

[TAKES OFF THE MASK FROM HIS FACE.] Ah. That’s better. Well, getting back to Global Warming— TH 11 OH : RISE IN SEA/WATER LEVEL due to this increased heat in our atmosphere, the ice caps in the North and South Pole started to melt and our water levels started to rise, causing floods, more loss of land and disaster.

Alex: That’s terrible and to think that we are ones causing all these problems for our future generations.

Prof: Yes, think about it!

Alex, can you tell me what’s the percentage of people on the planet as of this year, 2003, which don’t have access to clean drinking water?

Alex: Yes, Prof—its about 45%.

Prof: So it’s starting to get there. By 2075 about 65% of the people don’t have access to clean drinking water.

12TH OH: AQUIFERS This is cause people think that no matter what they do or how much water they waste, it will still keep coming out of the taps for them. Most of our supply of clean drinking water comes from the underground water level called Aquifers. The rate at which half the people on this planet who had access to clean water wasted it, our Aquifers started to dry out. With almost all out forests gone by now as well, there were no roots to hold our underground water in place.

Alex: But Prof I’ am confused as to why is there such a shortage of drinking water when 70% of our planet is covered in water with the seas and the oceans. Technology has come a long way, so why cant we just take the salt out of the seawater and use that for drinking purpose?

Prof: That’s a really good idea Alex. But I wish that it were as simple as you say. The problem, as I had mentioned earlier is that we are out of Oil by the year 2046.

13TH OH: OIL METER And we need oil to run the Desaltifying machines to run this process. No oil, what could we do?

Alex: No oil by 2046. That’s not a long way to go. Tell us Prof how can we all here in 2003 start saving oil.

Prof: There are a lot of ways in which we can save our oil. Lets ask the ones here first, who have to do this job of saving our oil.

[ALEX HELPS GET ANSWERS.] Prof: That’s right, not driving around in our cars when it’s not necessary, walk or use a bike if it’s a short distance; turning down the heating when you don’t need it; turning off the lights when you don’t need it and using low energy light bulbs, etc. are all simple ways to save our oil and energy. And if you all don’t start working towards this we will be out of oil by 2046.

Alex: it is sure not going to be easy without oil. But Prof I have wanted to ask from the beginning, why do you have a plastic bag stuck to your leg?

Prof: Oh sorry about that. It’s probably from one of the landfill sites that I had to walk past before I reached the experiment site to come here, and these landfills are from the waste that you all produce now. Take a look at these images.

14TH OH: LOOK WHAT WE ARE DOING! Alex: Uh, that’s disgusting, and to think that all of this comes out of our homes.

Prof: Yes, think about it. We produce so much waste, which is collected from our homes and dumped into these landfill sites, where it stays and rots for many years to come. This plastic bag for example, takes about 100 years to naturally decompose.

15TH OH: MAP OF UK LANDFILL SITES. Looking at this map of the UK, we can see how much area around you is nothing but landfill sites. This is NOT from 2075, this is now—2003. By 2075, almost everything is pink. Its horrible.

Alex: That’s terrible Prof, but how can we stop these landfill sites from growing at this alarming rate?

16Th OH: WHAT YOU CAN DO! Prof: We must put a check on the amount of waste that we produce and dump into the landfills. Above all, start Recycling, Reuse things, Refuse to take extra packaging and plastic bags, Repair old things-don’t just throw it away. We all can Recycle our paper, cans, bottles; plastic can be recycled in a few places too.

All these are very simple choices that you have to make now. All these right decisions that you make today, will make a difference for tomorrow.

17TH OH : YOU HAVE A CHOICE!

Alex: Talking about choices…lets quickly sum up and see a few of the right choices that you can make—we saw earlier different ways in which we can save our oil and energy; we also saw the urgency towards recycling of various things to stop the growing landfills.

A few other choices could be when you go out shopping next time, why not buy Fair Trade Products. That way the money you spend doesn’t mainly go to the big corporations. Here the farmer gets his fair wage—with the help of which the farmer can now afford to educate his children, have a better livelihood, get good health care, etc. A simple choice that can help people far far away.

What about the ‘charity shops’…they are one of the best sources of recycling cloths that we don’t need and to buy cloths for really very cheap prices. And when you buy things from there, the charity gets some money, which is a win-win situation.

How about recycling your kitchen waste…that’s called Composting. Don’t put your fruit and vegetable peels, tea bags, egg shells, etc. in the rubbish bin, compost it. That way ‘you’ get free manure for the garden, while keeping more waste reaching the landfills and also the bad smells out of the kitchen. Good news all around.

18TH OH : PEACE CHILD INT. BE THE CHANGE! AMBASSADOR PROGRAMME Amb. 2: [Coming out of disguise] That’s right. We all have to start being the change.

There is a lot of responsibility in our hands…and as young people we can make a difference. That’s exactly why I decided to become an Ambassador with Peace Child’s Be The Change! Programme.

Amb. 1: That’s why I’ am doing the same too, because I believe that I can make a difference. We hope that you will take away with a lot of important messages from our presentation. Our aim is not to give a totally gloomy picture, that alls bad or will soon become bad…perhaps it will, unless we all work together, do our bits and not wait for the adults to make the changes for us…because it is our future and we must make it a safe place for us.

Thank you.