Claire's Letter

To my grown up children,

I’m hoping that as you read this you are still able to enjoy the green countryside of Yorkshire, with birds singing and the bees (and occasional wasp) still floating around the lawn. I hope we can still hear children laughing in paddling pools in the summer and that it’s not too hot to play and sit out, nor too cold or flooded to walk the dog in the winter.

I know that to do this we need to all reduce the impact we are having on our fragile environment. We need to produce cleaner energy and use what we do use better. We need to be more wise, even frugal, about what we need to produce and consume and reduce waste. We depend on the natural environment around us, it is our true supply chain, this means stopping the over-fishing, deforestation, polluting our waters, killing our insects and forgetting that we share this planet with all species.

If leaders don’t step-up I fear that we will have left it too late, that the environmental damage will be irrevocably sustained. I fear that we will have lost many species of plants and animals, that we will have forever damaged our food and water resources, that we will have left much of our planet to be flooded by sea water or dried to desert and that our children of the future will live in much worse conditions than we do today.

To protect the environment, I have personally tried to reduce what I consume, reduce the food and packaging waste produced by my footprint, reduce my energy usage and invest in more energy efficient products. If we can all take small steps it can make a big difference.