Letters to the Future

Jeff vonKaenel, Alternative Weekly Publisher

My hope is that a hundred years from now we not only have a wonderful climate on our beautiful planet, but also that it will be filled with people like my long time friend and associate, Melinda Welsh, who inspired …Read more

Beverly Naidus, Artist, Author, Activist, Professor

Dearest ones, I write this with a heart full of both grief and gratitude. It may be difficult to imagine that there were ancestors who really cared about your future, but there are many of us now who do, and …Read more

Alex McKenzie, Poet, Painter, Sculptor

This is not an apology for laboratory meat created with proteins extracted from sewage or flour made of pulverized worms that you eat if you are wealthy enough to afford food. No apology for the fact elephants are extinct, the …Read more

Jose Guerrero, Graphic Designer & Web Developer

Dear future spawn of mine, Sorry about the predicament we put you in. I know sorry won't stop the dryer longer droughts or reclaim the billions of acres of arid wasteland. Sorry won't calm the maniacal fervor of the superstorms …Read more

Regina Cooley, Children's Book Author

First and foremost, this conference should keep in mind that for thousands of years climates have come and gone. If ISIS wins, none of us will ever have to address climate change again. We have to eradicate the madrasses where …Read more

Gabrielle Barnes, Student

On behalf of all mankind, I am sorry. I apologize for inviting you to live on a planet that has been previously abused. It’s like we invited you to a wild party that just ended, and in return you have …Read more

Bruce Jones, Construction

Dear people living on Earth in 2100, I have always had hope, a great hope that we humans beings are an evolving race. I would hate to believe that we keep on destroying our planet at the same rate we …Read more

Abiola Oluwasey, Climate Reality Project Leader Cote d Ivoire

We are parents, grandparents and families from around the world, and we have had enough of political passivity and profit-motivated roadblocks to bold action on climate. We have come together to raise our voices for all children, everywhere, whose futures …Read more

Cheryl Nenn, Milwaukee Riverkeeper

Dear future friends of the rivers, Who knows how the next 50 to 100 years will transform our rivers? If we know anything though, it is that our rivers will survive—they are resilient, timeless, and tireless. When imagining those rivers …Read more

Greeley Miklashek, MD, Retired Neuropsychiatrist and Active Stress Researcher

So, as you find yourselves scrounging for whatever resources your predecessors didn't already thoughtlessly exhaust, look around yourself. If there are more than an absolute maximum of 2 billion of your fellows attempting to scratch out a living on a …Read more

Ashly Olson, Student

Dear future descendants, I hope you are reading this in some history book, or on some blog years and years from the ones I’m living in. The world I live in is something that only seems to drift towards the …Read more

Catrina Bean, Student

Dear young one, I hope and pray that you grow up to love and care for not only the people that bless your life, but the land and Earth that you share with them as well. Technology is making leaps …Read more

Jared Hines, Artist

Dear Future Generations, Flesh of my begotten flesh- how might I ever ask for your sovereign forgiveness with such mounting distance between you and I? Temporally eons away, yet we find ourselves having made land on shores not dissimilar in …Read more

Anna Guarneri, Teacher

I have 49 years of wonderful memories. The best memories of my childhood are closely related to nature: I remember the colors of the sky, all the colors of the sky, and the clouds of any form but especially those …Read more

Aisha Johnk, Preschool Teacher

Dear Future Generation, Are you a relative of mine? Perhaps my Great Great Grandchild? If so then something dramatic has happened in my lifetime. Hopefully what happened is a global awareness of the destruction we are doing to our planet. …Read more

Denis Hayes, National Coordinator of the First Earth Day

Dear Granddaughter, Recently, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that, to his regret, the much-anticipated Paris Climate Conference of 2015 would not produce a treaty. Or, for that matter, anything else “enforceable.” The U.S. Senate will not ratify anything that …Read more

Ahmed Gaya, Climate Activist

To my Grandchildren, I’m sorry. Your world is so much harder because of what we did not do. It took us too long to realize there was a problem. It took longer still to realize the scope. Once we understood, …Read more

Gifford Pinchot III

Dear Granddaughter, I love you and want you to have a happy life. When you are 73, as I am today, and have a granddaughter of your own, you will care about her. I know that you would be quite …Read more

Jim Johnson, Biochem Research Collaborator

As a person who has spent most of his life intrigued with the details of molecular biochemistry and biology, though not a professor, I found my love for discovery. Though I am not not paid for much of what I …Read more

Bob Kalayjian, MD, Physician

Dear Grandchildren, We were slow to start and spent too much time fighting about who was more responsible and how much each country should do. So many of us were distracted by wars and greed that we didn't see how …Read more

Linda Gillaspy, Retired

I remember the day the ocean smelled different. What's wrong? I remember looking at the sky, brown and ugly. "Oh Mercy, Mercy Me," when will something be done? So many years, the air feels different, this is not the feel …Read more

Rose Wesley, Medical Social Worker

Dear great great grandchildren, If you are reading this it means you found the time capsule I buried in 2015 in the backyard near our great magnificent tree. That is good news as it means the Paris Climate Talks were …Read more

Misha Balch, Retired Psych Nurse, EcoTransActivist, Psych Undergrad at UWT

My children; If you are reading this, then you have survived. I don't know what the future has brought for you to deal with. But I know that you will use what you have well, and to the benefit of …Read more

Peter López, Typer

Sabbath ~ November 21, 2015 Letter to the Future: I pray we leave enough of the Earth intact for those who are sill around in the future to make the best of it. Mass unity based upon basic humane principles …Read more

Carter & Olivia Ries, Founders of One More Generation (OMG)

Hi, my name is Carter and together with my sister Olivia, we started our own nonprofit called One More Generation (OMG). We are writing to tell you about a problem we were facing back when we were just early teenagers. …Read more

Karen Olson Johnson, Executive Director, Radio Host, Author-winner Midwest Book Awards

Yours is the world of what we only felt was possible for you have realized the potential of love. We danced, marched, and sang about "all we need is love," but it is you, the future, who figured out how …Read more

T N Rauh, Author/Environmental Manager

Dearest, with all our being we apologize for our generation's failure. Our expectations were high as world leaders emerged from the 2015 Paris climate change conference. The draft they paraded was our path to pull back from the climate disaster— …Read more

Ka Lo, Librarian, Administration Assistant

To my children: My mother, your grandmother, worries for me because at the age of 33, I do not have any children of my own. She worries I will not have anyone to care for me when I am older. …Read more

Manjari Chatterji, CollegeTeacher

It is a little easier to envision my great grandchildren than Annie Leonard as I am much older. I also grew up in a cleaner world: less toxic chemicals, oil spills, polluted oceans, extinct species and less noise. I want …Read more

Anthony Robinson, Author-Designer-Educator

To The Generations of the Future: When we crossed over the bridge of the 20th Century into the 21st, we gazed out over a vast, empty plain: the future of the human species. Behind us lay the wreckage of industrial …Read more

Chandra Washington, Performing Artist, Writer

I grew up playing in the woods around my house. Besides the usual toys, we also played with and had great respect for the horned lizards, frogs, and turtles that would visit our property. One of my greatest memories as …Read more

John Wienert

I dearly hope we have managed to sufficiently address climate change to limit temperature change to 2 degrees C., but if not, at least to keep from reaching a 'tipping point' beyond which the climate is not salvageable (at least …Read more

Nichole Engel

Hello my dearest grandchildren. You may not know me but I truly do wish that we meet and I can be fortunate enough to find a place in your heart. Your world is probably a lot different than the world …Read more

Lauren Scheller-Wolf, High School Student

Dear People of the Future, My name is Lauren Scheller-Wolf. I’m fifteen. I don’t know anything about the future, of course, I don’t know what your lives are like; you’ve probably created things I could never have dreamed of. But …Read more

Dagmar L. Anders

I just finished my vegan meal. That is normal for you. Most people around you eat vegan, most people on earth eat vegan. There is nothing to point to about it. But in my times there was. Eating a plant …Read more

Jay Snider, HR Leader

A letter from a father to his two daughters. In the past there was a world where people cared more about being heard than being right. People cared more about arguing their point than listening to a differing opinion. People …Read more

Stuart Pettygrove, Retired Soil Scientist

I was born in California 70 years ago and am a retired agricultural scientist and educator. The progress made at the Paris climate conference in 2015 was too little and too late to keep the planet from warming by 2 …Read more

Jamie Hays-Welsh, Retired Teacher

Dear Little One, I hope this letter finds you happy, healthy and wise. I hope you are happy because you live on a beautiful planet that was not always this way. I hope you are out running in sunshine that …Read more

Debbie Barbuto, Homeschooling Mama, Artist, Author, Activist, Small Business Owner.

Mother Earth’s Fairy Tale By Mommy Moo Moo For my grandchildren's grandchildren Once upon a time, a long time ago, an evil force called Terrorism threatened world leaders and people from all around the planet from coming together to create …Read more

Raisa Haque, Student

To whomever this spreads love to: It is the year 5000. I am not quite sure where I am. I used to live a very secular and isolated life in this broken town but all that has changed. The militarian …Read more

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