Dear Erin, Adam, and Gabriel,

Greetings from Buppa in New London, NH. As you may know now that you are grown up, your mom/aunt Jill in 2015 helped start DearTomorrow.org. A project that helped parents and grandparents put down on paper their thoughts on climate change, renewable energy and other aspects of living on Global Earth.

This January, I turned 70. Hard for me to believe that I have been living on our planet for 70 revolutions around the sun. When I think back to when I was a teenager, boy I thought people who were 70 were old. I only had one grandmother, my mom’s mom and she lived closes to our house and was a pretty cool lady. Lived to be 95.

But now I should turn to more serious thoughts about climate change and how changes in how we live, how we use energy, how we affect the air we breathe and the weather we experience. Back in the 60s and 70s a big thing in air pollution was acid rain. Caused to emissions of coal plants. Fortunately, acid rain has now been the problem today that it was 50 years ago.

What can we do? What can I do? What did I actually do to make the Earth a better place to live? A person can affect change in a variety of paths. One path is “what can I do financially?”, another path is “what can I change in my lifestyle?”, another path is “how to help promote change in society?”, and yet another path is “what can I do to change people’s minds, i.e. what should I do politically?

So being the numbers guy that Nanny says I am, I will do financial first. As you me know already, Nanny and I live in the New London house which you have visited many times. What you may not know is that eventually after we are gone, the New London house will be owned by your moms, Uncle Josh, Uncle Chris and Uncle Peer for the benefit of your five families. Since you the next generation may inherit New London house, Nanny and I have put money into the solarizing of the house in order to 1) cut costs of operating the house, and 2) which is more important, it reduces the electrical energy that the house uses that comes from burning fossil fuels which are a big contributor to C02 production and increasing the Earth’s temperature. All most every informed person understands that the Earth is getting warmer, this is climate change and will have big effects in your lifetime and your children’s lifetime in terms of long term effects and in the short run, more serious weather impacts.

What about life style changes? Well, we went to having just one car that gets high mileage but still can handle New Hampshire weather in terms of snow. Perhaps our next car will be a complete electric car light Telsa makes. We also try to walk places and us the car in town in a limited fashion. What do I mean by this? We try to chain together errands so that we are not running back and forth to the same area of town more than once a day. We take the bus to Boston if we have to go there for meetings. Using public transportation whenever possible, like Amtrak to NYC.

How do we make changes in society’s perception of what is happening? We do so by speaking up and setting examples of good stewardship of the Earth’s resources. By talking to our friends to help them see how they can change their lives to preserve resources. Nanny and I are involved in two groups, Elders Climate Action group and our COA Climate Action group. The COA group is putting on an Energy Environmental Expo in April 2018. The purpose of the Expo is to inform local people what they can do for themselves that positively affects Climate Change.

In the political area, we can get out and lobby on behalf of climate change rules and also promote and help people running for public office at all levels. You can go out and canvass, volunteer in a candidate’s office, and donate money to people who have climate change as a primary focus of their political addenda. Run for office yourself if you feel you can make a change for the better. Volunteer to be on local committees etc., give back to your community.

I am very proud of you. I know that each of you will make a difference in the lives of the people closest to you, as well as the communities that you end up living in as you grow up.

Love,

Buppa