Throughout the history of the human race there have been times when changes have to be embraced.

The places where we live, where we toil, where we exist, had to change.

From over 200,000 years ago our species explored, moved, migrated, driven by changing circumstances.

As the environment changed over 100,000 years ago, giving us new opportunities for food and shelter, the human race began spreading across the world, beginning to move out of the caves, building our first structures, our first homes.

But back then, over 50 times longer ago then the mere 2,000 years or so of what we might consider our modern world, a drought nearly ended us.

All of us.

Around 90,000 years ago the planet nearly ended us as a species.

But we were lucky, we survived, things got better, we explored, moved onward, adapted, changed.

And did we change, oh yes. We changed in appearance, in culture, in a myriad of different ways.

Our earliest explorers took people to new places, new lands, to live new lives, develop new cultures, new tribes, separate from those in those other lands.

But despite such vast differences, spread across continents and environments so different, so varied, deep down, in our marrow, our blood, we’re all human, capable of thought and feeling, despite the behaviours of some.

We all seek safety, shelter, food, comfort.

But things have begun to change again.

We have become so powerful as to think of ourselves as masters of this world, of its workings, its moods, its seasons.

There is nothing to stop us from doing anything we want.

We can rock the boat as much as we like, it will never capsize.

But history, as the universe is more than willing in its overwhelming indifference to point out, can often repeat itself, especially if driven by greed and avarice.

Conditions are changing, and no matter what someone tells you, about pollution, about climate change, about hoaxes, when the flood comes, or the fires burn down your home for the fifth time, deep down, in the bones of your ancestors, you know the time is coming.

You take what you can, but you know you have to do what so many of your ancestors did tens of thousands of years ago.

You move, you migrate, you seek food, you seek shelter, because things are changing, and we know how little the universe cares if you move out of the way of what is coming or not.

Zainab Carver - Speech at Environmental Risk Conference