Letters to the Future

Mark Farmer, Professor of Cellular Biology at the University of Georgia

These words will bring you no solace and they bring no joy to me, but I feel that by way of confession I must say them nonetheless. I am sorry. Very, very sorry. As I think of the misery we …Read more

Karleen Koen, Writer

Hope
There's always hope
I send you hopeRead more

Jack Miles, Professor of Religion, Pulitzer Prize Winner

We are sorry, so very sorry. You are living in a wrecked world, those of you who have not already perished, but you did not wreck it. We did, we of the early 21st century. The great nations of our …Read more

Jill Talbot, Professor and Essayist

Years ago, in the middle of a July night, my hands sifted through a bend in the Eagle River to rearrange a mosaic made by moonlight, while a silhouette of the man I loved and would one day lose leapt …Read more

Rob Swigart, Writer

Dear Ari, I wanted to tell you a little bit about my world, because yours is going to be very different. For one thing, I was born into a world where we communicated over long distances by physical letters, or …Read more

Arlene Williams, Writer

I hope you are alive. I have to admit that you may not survive. Every day that we warm this Earth without changing our technology, your chances are getting slimmer. If you are alive, I fear that the conditions you …Read more

David Ehrenfeld, Rutgers Professor of Biology, Author

To Our Descendants, I'll make this short, because you are probably busy getting ready for the winter. I live in what you may call The Age of Wasted Cheap Energy, although I'm sure you have nastier terms to describe our …Read more

Ernest Zebrowski, Author and Retired Physics Professor

Dear Casimir, Do you know how to reverse an unwelcome truth? You start by lying about it, very loudly, and over and over. Then you coach others into joining you in repeating your lies and even improving on them. Eventually …Read more

Rev. Gail Collins-Ranadive, Author and Activist

If you are reading this, dear ones, it means that humanity matured in time to not go the way of the dinosaurs. Please know this did not come to pass without massive effort on the part of people you may …Read more

Daco Auffenorde, Author/Attorney

Dear Butterfly, My hope is that when the seasons change, you have wondrous moments in your life, and that the seasons do change, so that your arms may rise in unfettered joy, that your step skips so lightly you believe …Read more

Carolyn (Cary) Neeper, Writer and Student of Solutions for the Future

Dear ones: We have such potential, we humans, but we also have some genetics to overcome--like cognitive dissonance--the tendency to refuse good evidence when it contradicts old beliefs. I'm sorry we couldn't understand our need to contain ourselves and our …Read more

K O

We thought we could buy life and sell ourselves; we thought that made us owners of what we didn't understand; we thought, we thought... We thought so much we stopped going outside, or even looking outside. Our understanding of the …Read more

Leonard Sobczak, Real Estate

To the children of the future; We tried. I was heartened back then when President Jimmy Carter was promoting and modeling fuel conservation. I was horrified when President Ronald Reagan dispensed with that message and heralded the era of gas …Read more

Micaela Unda, Student, Duke University, Environmental Science and Policy Major

Dear those filled with wonder, those filled with awe, Oh my dear how I hope that you, as a child of the future, are able to read this letter amongst the towering ponderosa pines that call for endless sky towards …Read more

Perry Elerts, Student

Children, There have existed few moments in history where the future of the world has looked as bleak as it did in 2015. Climate change threatened the very existence of life on earth. The most pivotal moment in our history …Read more

Diane Zinna, Writer

I read today that memories can be passed down to future generations in our DNA. Amazing. So you: do you stand sometimes, at the top of a snowy mountain, and feel fear for seemingly no reason? I ask because there …Read more

Beth Esser, Stay-At-Home Mom

Dear future family, As I write this I picture my two young children at a time in their own lives when they are older than I am now. They are enjoying life with their children and grandchildren (& maybe even …Read more

Daniel Wilson, Journalist

Dear Future, I am going to cut right to the chase because I waited until the last second to get this done. Hey, what can I say? I’m a journalist and I’m used to working on deadlines. If that deadline …Read more

Frank Baumgardner, Early California Historian, Author

When I asked once what I could do to help save animals from going extinct, they told me to "just stay away from them." The idea was to just avoid such mammals and other species. No longer is that enough, …Read more

J.D. Gibaurd, Agent Provacateur

Can truth be told? The past, if it exists, is an algorithm you can’t decode. But there are things you should know. Understand: Numbers are. Before we learned to count ten fingers, Pi was, doing what it does, carving a …Read more

Kerry Schumann, Exeutive Director, Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters

Dear great, great grandchildren, As you look back on my generation, I hope you are thanking us. I hope we are remembered as having come to the brink of disaster, but turned back just in time to leave this planet …Read more

Lisa Neff, Journalist

Dear future, I wish you could know the magnificent world I know. I grew up in a place romanticized in fiction as Greentown and, as an adult, I lived on the rocky seacoast of New Hampshire, along the mighty Mississippi, …Read more

Dallas Burtraw, Economist

From where we are now one can see it is not only if but also how we capture the runaway climate that will matter to our children. Our success will create a huge new source of value, like the opening …Read more

The Staff and Supporters of Clean Wisconsin, Environmental Advocates

Dear Earth, We do not know how you will look in the next 50 or 100 years … but our world leaders will have a hand in determining that in Paris next month. But we do know how you have …Read more

David Harrington, Violinist, Artistic Director, Kronos Quartet

When we hold something that is very precious, the only one of its kind—a baby, an heirloom from a beloved ancestor, a grandchild's painting—we take care of it, we cherish it and ensure that it is safe. This is a …Read more

Mark Stemen, Professor

I am sorry. As I sit here early in the morning and think about my great, great-granddaughter, living in a climate-changed world, I am sorry is the main thought that keeps coming to mind. I am writing this letter to …Read more

Rich Rusk, Secretary of the Georgia Climate Change Action Coalition

For this American, with rising seas, record droughts and raging fires already upon us, with terrible climate impacts coming even if fossil fuel use ended tomorrow, these are discouraging times. Words of wisdom? Let’s start with an apology—to my own …Read more

Sen. Lois Wolk, California State Senator from Northern California

Dearest Grands (Avery, Audrey, Grace, Isabel, Layla, Max) and Great-grands, in 2015, the year of the Paris Summit, the effects of climate change on California became unmistakable. Our state endured the fifth year of one of the most severe droughts …Read more

Nitanju Bolade Casel, Member of the Grammy Award-Winning Troupe Sweet Honey in the Rock

As we move toward the 2015 U.N. climate talks in Paris, my prayers are for you, your children and your children's children's children. May the outcome be in your favor; for your future. I pray that you will be blessed …Read more

Carol Maillard, Member of the Grammy Award-Winning Troupe Sweet Honey in the Rock

My blessings to future generations.
To life.
In all forms.Read more

Louise Robinson, Member of the Grammy Award-Winning Troupe Sweet Honey in the Rock

When I was a young girl growing up in New York City, we used to go south every summer to visit my grandparents who lived on 11 acres of land where they grew their own food. The small house was …Read more

Aisha Kahlil, Member of the Grammy Award-Winning Troupe Sweet Honey in the Rock

I am a water child. In Jamaica, the fishermen call me “the mermaid.” Dancing in the fresh waters in Jamaica of the river, sea and the blue lagoon, while watching the fishermen with their fresh catch from those crystal waters, …Read more

Teddi DiCanio, Writer, Voice Teacher, Storyteller

Subject: Thoughts on the present environment. What will become of us? What must you, readers to come, cope with? The modern urban world encases us in a bubble. When, for example, California experiences a drought, we’ll worry about the price …Read more

Jake Davis, Groundskeeper

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 …Read more

Elizabeth Macklin, Poet

I will tell you that we did learn about it early, but couldn’t make power listen for the longest time. Early on we did make a holiday, which you may still celebrate: Earth Day—it felt like a meaningful gesture at …Read more

Claire Hutkins Seda, Writer & Editor

Dear children, Those climate talks in Paris in 2015, they were just the beginning, weren’t they? How we took to the streets, how we mobilized against climate change, with courage and all our strength, as if in the midst of …Read more

Debra Chase, Personal Chef/Farmer/Blogger/Writer

Dear Future Great Great Grand Daughter/Son, Food and memory overlaps as it usually does for me on Thanksgiving morning. I wake early to get a head start on the traditional family meal pondering the meals we had when I was …Read more

Annette Faurote, Retired National Park Guide/Interpretor/Driver

What can I say. There are no real words to explain all that is going on in our world today. Earth and all the gifts it's given are so incredible and beautiful. I am grateful everyday for the amazing trees …Read more

Bobbi Katz, Poet/Author 82 years

Dear Stranger, I call myself Old Woman, and I have fallen in love with Sky. I never tire of its changing beauty. In fact, as my time for leaving Earth grows closer, I'm more appreciative of it than ever: the …Read more

Joaquín Cano, California Senate Consultant

Dear great grandchildren, Several decades ago I wrote this article about the damages we, humans, were inflicting to our Mother Earth. I wished it wasn't too late, and had the high hopes that if you finally would be able to …Read more

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