Letters to the Future

Anne Hanson, Retired

I start my car and think of you wondering
how it was that, so long ago, we drove alone,
even at speeds that wasted our gas,Read more

Sue Chehrenegar, Freelance Writer

To my granddaughter and all those who are members of her generation: I still remember the time that I talked about celebrating the first Earth Day back in 1970. That was on the day that you had turned four, and …Read more

Mony Shohadaee, Retired Professional Educator & Writer

Walking each morning on
a pasture sprinkled with tiny drops of dawn,
I could barely feel on my bareRead more

Robin Kristufek, Public Health Nurse

Dear Great great grandchildren, You must be wondering “Why??? Why can we only walk on 1% of earth’s land? Why are water and soil so poisonous that our mother does not let us touch it in some places? Why are …Read more

David Kendall, Retired Marine Biologist

I am writing this letter to the future grandchildren's grandchildren to inform them of what we hope will happen at the Paris Climate Change Conference. I am a retired Marine Biologist, who has devoted my entire career to protecting marine …Read more

Brian Crawford, Architect

Dear humanity, This letter is intended for future generations who wonder what has happened to the people who inhabited these massive ruins we called modern cities. In my times, the earth was a different place: we had only begun to …Read more

Meow Kitty, Cat

Dear Kittens of the Future, There is much news to share with you from the Cat world of 2015. People say Cats have taken over the internet, so here I am leaving this note of my adventures. I was born …Read more

Olivia James, Healer and Bookkeeper

I believe that those who can read this letter and have survived the Great Anger will be few. NOT because there will be so few people: those who live will feel rich, feel abundance and have a new world to …Read more

Kelcie Hollingsworth

I am sorry. For what we did to the air, what we put in the water, and what we did to the trees. I'm sorry that we did not think ahead, that we didn't think about your future and only …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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Betty Roszak, Poet/Artist

Dear Grandchildren: Having just read Roy Scranton's article "Tourists at the World's End" in the Nation, I took some of his words to tell you my thoughts about what is happening to our planet. The Beaufort Gyre thickening the ice, …Read more

Jim McGarry, Director, The Sr. Dorothy Stang Center NDNU

To the People of Para State, Brazil: You led the way. You pioneered a system of sustainable use that was truly responsive to the needs of the earth in your time and into the future of your descendants. You were …Read more

William Eaton, Writer

This is my letter to the future,
That cannot write to me,—
The simple news that Nature told,Read more

Noné Chinery Redmond, Volunteer, Activist

Dear Ones, I am thinking of my father's garden with the apple trees and the berry brambles eighty years ago. There were rows of potatoes and Brussels sprouts with cabbage big and tight as footballs. I remember rhubarb and gooseberries …Read more

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, United States Senator from Nevada

As a young boy growing up in Searchlight, the unique beauty of the Nevada desert was my home. Our family didn’t travel or take vacations, but we were able to visit Fort Piute Springs which was just 15 miles from …Read more

Pam Houston, Author and Essayist

Dear Future Inhabitants of the Earth, I was speaking with an environmental scientist friend of mine not too long ago and he said he felt extremely grim about the fate of the earth in the hundred-year frame, but quite optimistic …Read more

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