Mandy Ellison's Letter

My dearest grandsons Oscar and Dougie,

Today is October 2022 but I am writing to you in the future, in 2030. In that year I will be 74 and you will be 18 and 9. As I write now the climate emergency is getting ever more scary. I am scared. Warnings about how long we have to halt the damage and prevent a 6th mass extinction grow more and more urgent every day. Only recently Pakistan suffered disastrous flooding and loss of life, thousands of people were displaced because of it. Elsewhere in the world wildfires too are destroying homes, businesses and people are dying. Because of global warming glaciers are melting causing sea levels to rise. Even the perma frost is melting. The number of climate refugees increases daily. Wildlife and habitats on land, in the sea and air are suffering terribly, sometimes the damage is irreversible. As the demands on our planet grow and grow our planet suffers more and more.
Millions of people across the planet are trying to change things, with greater and greater urgency, by lobbying governments and the companies who drill, mine and frack our precious earth for fossil fuels. Often individuals feel useless and disheartened, but by joining
together they continue to fight the establishment to create a better future for us all.
My hope is that in 2030 this situation will have changed. People joined together in far greater numbers to speak out and bring about change. They will have listened to the warnings, started talking, collaborating and changing the system. Citizens’ assemblies, not just governments, all over the world will have a say in how the planet is cared for. Governments will have banned coal mining, drilling for oil and fracking. Even my local MP, Katherine Fletcher, has become a climate activist herself. Money is being invested on developing different forms of providing energy such as precious solar, wind and hydrogen fuels. Endangered environments all over the planet are now being protected, by whole communities and far ranging laws, so they are thriving again, and so is the wildlife, and the indigenous peoples who live there. People are secure and happy, and I will be confident then as I know your lives and your future on our beautiful planet earth will be healthy, safe and protected.