Greta's Letter

My dear family,

Hopefully you will read this letter in a future much better than I imagine it most of the time and in a world where we have better news than sinking islands and wildfires spreading across countries.

I can’t remember hearing the term climate change until I was about 10, but even though I didn’t know the term, growing up I knew and heard that things changed, that animals died out, that people lost their homes and heard stories about how different winter was not so long ago. This has always been a terrifying thought for me and I never understood why humanity didn’t do more to stop climate change. Over the years I have seen a lot of reactions to the topic of climate change, there are some who say it doesn’t exist, some who do everything to help change it, but most people belong to another category. They know and agree that climate change exists, that it is horrible but don’t do anything. I never understood this until I realized that they are most likely scared, just gave up or don’t believe that their actions would change anything, because compared to any big company our climate actions might seem insignificant. A view I can understand and maybe belonged to for a while, because it seems impossible, particularly as a young person, to produce any kind of change and even though the government tends to talk a lot about having to make decisions to preserve to our planet for the younger generation, most of their ideas are not productive enough or take time frames into consideration that won’t show results quick enough. And they don’t tend to listen to young voices who often make more valid points than some adults.

I hope that projects like Fridays for future are going to start again and that young people gain the ability to convince the rest of humanity that there is still hope and that we should act now! Furthermore, I have hopes that all governments will finally properly start to show actions to stop the climate crisis, and everyone will join forces. Because this is the only earth we have and destroying it out of nihilism, fear and greed is not the way to go, as we are not only carrying the responsibility for ourselves, one of the most egoistic species in existence, but for an amazing planet with other species, that are not able to take action to safe their planet!

See you soon!

GW