Voices is the Dorset Echo's weekly youth page, written for young people by young people. If you would like to write an article for Voices, please email alex.cutler@dorsetecjo.co.uk for details.

The voice of our future, Greta Thunburg fought for hope at the UN in a hard-hitting speech.

With #howdareyou trending, people across the world witnessed a 16-year-old school girl making history. Nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize after starting the school climate strikes, it’s safe to say that Greta Thunberg is having a huge impact on people’s lives.

She said: “This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!”

Because it’s our future, young people are expected to make a change. Greta may be the one leading the revolution, but arguably, it should be the people in power, the people entrusted to lead the country to make the difference.

The most powerful and striking line of her speech: “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”

In this, she makes reference to the impacts of climate change such as; global temperature rise, warming oceans and shrinking ice sheets. These are some drastic and avoidable repercussions of a problem that could have had a much smaller impact if the right measures were put in place. Now, the clock is ticking.

Greta is fighting for our future and many are following, there are hundreds of stories about how badly climate change is affecting the world, this has been happening for years and it just gets brushed aside. How long can it continue before people wake up to the reality that Earth, our only home is nearly beyond repair.

The government's former chief scientific adviser, Prof Sir David King has previously said: "What we do over the next 10 years will determine the future of humanity for the next 10,000 years. There is no major centre in the world that would be focused on this one big issue,"

A drastic change needs to be made now before it’s too late.

By Hollie Carr