We just didn't realize...

Dearest friends,

We didn't realize what we were doing. We just didn't. We didn't realize how bad things were getting or how bad they were going to get. In my time we lived in a world of such plenty; plenty of food, plenty of clean water and air, plenty of stuff to enjoy. Everything seemed to be going so well that most of us never looked at what our lifestyle was doing to the planet on which we depended.

Everything was so shiny, clean and new that we never imagined the ugliness it took to create it. At some point some of us started to become aware but by then it was too late. Our entire way of life was built on destroying the earth and we didn't know how to stop it. So we kept making and buying all that stuff.

The only way to prevent the impending chaos would have been to immediately reverse course. But by then we were in so deep and so far removed from a "natural" lifestyle that we just didn't know how to live without the stuff. And unfortunately we didn't have time to learn how to make the stuff in a way that wouldn't ruin our home.

Our last chance came in 2015 when our "leaders" gathered to discuss it. We hoped they'd do everything they could to turn things around. But they weren't willing to make the sacrifices required for us to continue. They didn't realize either.

See, we had this thing called money. It became the most important thing in the world to us. It became so important that we forgot the importance of air and water and food. We forgot about the intricate and finely balanced ecosystem of which we were a part. We forgot that without those things the money meant nothing. Turned out, you couldn't eat money.

And so we sealed our fate and yours. I'm so sorry. I wish we'd done things differently. But we just didn't realize....