To those who come after,

Though I can’t imagine what the world is like in the future, if it has changed at all, I sincerely hope that you’re doing well, and that the political and environmental climates have stabilized around a set of common goals. You deserve to live on a healthier planet, and I have faith that in the years after I write this letter, we’ll be working harder towards giving you the world you deserve. At the very least, you’ll suffer much less from an obligation to repair the destruction caused by those who came before you.

You may still be working to restore our planet to our ideal state. Unless this letter reaches someone a few hundred years from now, you more that likely will be. Yet, I want you to rest assured that we’re working, too. The progress has been slow going to far, with a lot of politicians expressing skepticism about the need for and methods of environmental work. However, we’ve made some headway, as more people who are passionate and knowledgeable about environmental protection and restoration are given a platform to speak from, spreading awareness and strengthening the forward movement. On a smaller scale, many people in the past decade or so have been made aware of sustainability. Sustainability, more of a discipline than it is a science, combines social, economic, and environmental circles with the goal of consuming resources wisely, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. You’re a part of those future generations, and with any luck, you’ll have grown up learning about a variety of sustainable practices. Maybe you have a more efficient recycling system, or power your latest generation Xbox with solar panels. At the very least, I hope you’re not using plastic straws.

I want to leave you a world you can be proud of. I hope that studying and practicing sustainability will allow me, and so many other like me, to do that. You deserve to have chance to see a manatee at least once in your life. You deserve to live on a cooler planet, one that’s not driven into an eventual ice age because of climate change. You deserve to live in a world you can be proud of. I hope that you’ll be sustainable and considerate of the environment in everything you do, if for nothing else than the sake of those who come after.

Good luck.

Send Your Own Message

More Messages to the Future

Dear ACS, LG, CM, MCD, AH, MS, AS, GL, and ERD,

I commit to demanding that politicians that want my vote, my time, my substantial help and expertise are people who seek to address climate change seriously and talk about it boldly.

Minhas lindas,

As causas das mudanças no clima são tão profundas e envolvem tanta gente e tantos lugares.

Dear tomorrow,

The blue sky will no longer be grey, and the bleak clouds will be vibrant.

I will recycle stuff I found.

Dear Future,

We need to work to save our beautiful home.

Dear Owen and Vivian,

Here’s the biggest secret: I KNOW it will have. We may not realize how, but we have changed the world.

Dear A and C,

You are growing up in a time of immense change. In the last two years alone, we’ve learned so much about big and important issues including climate change and the systemic racism that runs through our institutions.

Chers Enfants,

Olá minha querida filha Julia,

Muita Coragem e força para você enfrentar todos os desafios que virão, pois são com eles que crescemos.

Dear Amara and Uma,

Maybe you heard about bats? Bats, the carriers of this disease that spread among us like wild fire. I love bats. When I was your age today, sitting in the evening on the back terrace of your grandparent’s home in Ibiza, hundreds of bats would play, dance and sing among the trees.

Future Message to Earth,

Hope there will be no more droughts,
And no more pollution with which we fought,
Regarding every human should be taught,
Ensuring that we uniformly follow these thoughts.

Dear Tomorrow

I will get my roommates to be more environmentally friendly.

View All Messages