Malcolm,
I want you and your grandchildren to go fishing and eat the trout you catch and drink from the springs and catch snowflakes on your tongues and swim freely in our oceans and breath clean air and walk in intact, ancient forests, and so much more. Who are we to deprive you of that beauty?
Dear Soren
I’ve been meaning to write this letter to you for a while now. In a way, I’ve been meaning to write it ever since I felt you kick for the first time and it hit me that you were real - a tiny person, mine and the world’s.
Dear future grandchildren,
When I think of the environment I think beyond the things we can see and feel that are obvious to everyone. I apologize for the damage we did and generations before us, that either did not know better or totally disregarded the warnings.
My children,
I am sitting here writing this letter on a quiet Sunday afternoon. The wind is gusting, blowing the piles of leaves into the air and depositing them in dusty, forlorn and forgotten corners. The leaves, most of them still clinging to the trees, crinkly and brown, are unwilling participants in the changing climate. A reminder of the record breaking cold snap from last month, having frozen them in place, denying them their time of glory and natural order of business.
Dear Non-human Creatures of 2050:
As one of your sister species, having evolved from you and alongside you for 3.8 billion years, I am heart-heavy to say with such regret that our species has created a mess. We have come in like a whirling dervish, in a few short centuries, to turn on end the homeostatic balance of the world you depend on. Climate disruption, plastics and chemicals spread to every corner, and loss of our planet’s beloved creatures every day. I must ask… how are you doing?
Dear Tomorrow
Whoever you are, I probably don’t know you. We’re probably not related. We may not even have a common friend or acquaintance. And yet I think about you constantly. I think about the world that you are living in right now – is there enough water? Enough food? Are any of the places I loved still recognizable? What is the story that you tell yourselves about us, the people living right now – did our work ever amount to anything or is the world nearly unbearable if you’re not rich or powerful?
Dear K
You love pears and apples from the yard, watching deer, fox and birds out the window of our house, finding flowers, picking berries, “hiking a mountain” as you like to say... so many beautiful natural things that may exist in a totally different way in 2050, and some that may not exist at all if the changing climate continues on its current course.
Dear Samuel, Willa, and Ben,
The year 2050 feels a long way off, and whether that year we see earth’s continued deterioration, or an earth healing, still beautiful yet changed, remains to be seen. I hope and believe it is the latter, and oh my, is there work to do! So let's get rolling.