All images: RICE file photo by Zachary Tang

At 75 years old, Betty L. Khoo-Kingsley has written an apology letter to her grandchildren on behalf of her generation for wrecking our planet.

As she pulls out her laptop to show me this letter at the SG Climate Rally at Hong Lim Park, the suffocating 5 PM heat beats down on my back, reiterating her point by thoroughly soaking through my shirt.

“I admit that my generation is instrumental in causing the dire state of our planet, so I feel like we should be responsible for cleaning it up too. How can we say that it’s difficult when there are clearly solutions?” she says emphatically, listing a school in Thailand that has been powered by solar panels for years.

“Climate change cannot and will not happen without radical action, because we are already past the tipping point. Scientists have been warning us for years.”

Her impassioned sense of urgency evokes an unfamiliar stirring in my chest. It feels like hope.