Gareth's Letter

To my son,

Just a few words I’m putting down to explain how we managed to turn things around with the climate and biodiversity crisis of the 2020s.
Luckily we managed to pull together as a species across the world and took steps to mitigate and where possible reverse the damage we had and have caused.

We harnessed the power of the wind, waves, tides, sun and the ground to make energy and heat for our homes and industries.

We banned all single use plastic and banned the plastics that are hard to recycle. Deposit schemes were brought in for all containers including glass, aluminium and plastic.

We brought in a circular economy where we made products to last with replaceable components, what finally wore out was reused or recycled and there was zero waste.

We weaned ourselves off of combustion engines and began to be more active, walking and cycling more and where needed public transport or personal vehicles as a last resort. We reduced transport to a minimum and this meant we didn’t need to build anymore roads, only maintain what we already have.

We still flew but it was once in a blue moon for a holiday or emergency, short haul flights were phased out wherever possible. Use of the internet for international communication became the new norm.

We learned to live in harmony with our environment and respect nature. We minimised and eliminated the use of pesticides where possible, all hedgerows were restored and new hedges and woods were planted. Over a third of the land and sea was protected and managed for nature.
Wildlife and marine species began to increase as a result and we safeguarded our fish stocks for all.

We stopped thinking short term or about ourselves and started thinking how can we manage these problems long term over decades and even centuries and how can we manage them for the benefit of all as well as benefitting wildlife.

A big green scheme was put in place in 2022, all UK houses were insulated to modern standards and converted to either ground/water/air based heat pumps. Many onshore wind turbines were built, all UK buildings were fitted with either solar electric panels or solar hot water panels and some with both. We cut down our energy use and increased our energy efficiency.

We got together as a world and helped redistribute wealth and balance the worlds economies. We helped prevent further overpopulation by use of education and birth control and managed to bring numbers down over time.

We learned to live in peace and accept we are all different and may think, feel and believe different things but at the end of the day we are all human beings and have a shared history.

This is just a snapshot of some of what we achieved, you will know the rest. I’m glad that we did the right thing.

Best wishes

Gareth