Suzanne's Letter

To my fictional daughter, Cordelia,

Dearest Cordelia,

It seems strange writing this letter because you don't exist. I am thirty-eight and will never have children because I decided at the age of sixteen that bringing a child into a world experiencing climate change would be selfish and irresponsible and not morally justifiable given the future the planet and humanity faces.

I hope you can understand, that I put your own future welfare above my own desires for motherhood and I simply could not endure seeing you worry about surviving the impending storms, heatwaves, melting glaciers, rising water levels, crop failures and mass global starvation and species loss. No parent should have to worry frantically about their own progeny's ability to survive on a heating Earth.

After years of climate campaigning, it is clear to me that our species is now doomed and the political leadership simply does not exist to tackle the terrors and challenges of a globally changing, warming world or to adapt.

You would have been named after my favourite fictional character, a woman who believed in speaking the Truth to power, to her Kingdom and family.

I will always think of you fondly and hope this decision was for the best.

With Much Love,

Your Fictional Mother