Sent on by
Jim Hatch
Send Your Own Message

What can I say?

I have tried to be a good steward and to set a good example, but clearly it hasn’t been anywhere near enough. I was an environmental activist back at the first Earth Day; I learned to garden and spent a number of years teaching environmental education. But life moved on and I had a family to support and somewhere along the line I lost that 70’s zeal, and as I watched how the capitalist greed ran rough shod over everything I got cynical. Now I look to you with the youthful energy and idealism to help me get more focused, to help find ways to do things that may actually make a difference. Sure, I drive a Prius and try to eat local, I turn off the lights and recycle. We belong to lots of environmental organizations, but mostly we just send a check every year. Your mother and I have been volunteering for local candidates and knocking on doors to get out the vote, but the direction of the country is moving to the right and it is very discouraging. Lots of days I feel like it is too late, that the world will have to do through a mass extinction that includes the end of homo sapiens and then start the process over again. But I love the natural world too much to give up. Hopefully I can spend the time I have left finding ways to make a real difference so that you will still have a world full of bird song after my generation is gone.

Share on:
 
Send Your Own Message

More Messages to the Future

 

To our future generations,

I want you to know that some of us do care and we are working towards a better future for you.

 

Dear Tom and Leena,

I want you to only see the beauty in this world; there is so much of it and I will protect this beauty for as long as I am here on this Earth.

 

Dear Nephew,

I believe i have truly played my part in raising awareness and practical solutions to climate change.

 

Dear Brothers & Sisters All Across Mother Earth,

I promise to wholeheartedly live my life with an awareness of my personal impact on our communities and our planet.

 

Dear Grandchildren — August and any others who were born after him

I joined millions of other people who wrote letters and made calls urging our leaders to do more to care for the planet.

 

My dear granddaughter Christy,

My own curiosity and knowing what a caring, aware young woman you are help me override despair.

 

Dear Me,

Today, I promise to keep my spaces clean and my environment cleaner.

 

To my future children,

It’s not enough to just recycle. I will sign petitions and call my local representatives. I will also engage in conversations about climate change – even with people with whom I don’t see eye-to-eye.

 

Dear Spike, Loulou and Yoshua,

I’m going to start a campaign to try to convince everybody in the Netherlands to not eat meat one day a week.

 

Dear Nephew,

I am going to start doing better to have a healthier planet for you to live on.

 

Dear future Michelle,

As consumers, it is our duty to protest and force companies to be greener and avoid environmental damage, whether they are from the food industry or from any other production industry. It’s about time we start thinking greener.

 

Dear Tomorrow,

My promise is to continue to dedicate my life, my business, and my future to creating cultures that embrace environmental action not only for our own good, but the good of the countless other species hurting from climate change.

View All Messages

Send Your Own Message