Dear Nora,
My daughter, I'm writing this letter to you because you are the joy of my life, and I want your future to posses an environment that is healthy. The generations before yours, including my own, have acted poorly toward the Earth, disrespected the systems that sustain not only humanity but the other species that share it with us. I'm sorry. The problems that we have created will take many generations to correct. It is no longer a matter of wanting to leave you and your generation a planet that is as healthy as the one in which I've had the privilege to grow up in, because that planet will not exist, but to leave you with a planet on which you can be healthy and happy.
I was selfish. Instead of studying earth systems and making a difference through science, I studied the art of writing. I believed that literature, stories, could change the world. I was wrong. The way to change the world is to design systems and markets that play on our selfish natures. Just like all other life, we are opportunistic creatures. We are competitive. Despite what your father would like to believe about humanity, alturism, on the level needed to make an environmental difference, does not exist. The only way to motivate our species to provide it with immediate reward.
Still, I feel that there is hope. Environmental Summits, like this one, are a start. They validate the need to take action and to take action now. However, we should not put all of our hope in governments. Governments are made up of people who belong to a different social class, a class that is used to getting what it wants in the short term - money, power, opportunity, etc. If real change, to sustain the livelihoods of the middle and lower classes, is to come about, we have to work locally, within our communities with our neighbors.
My confession is that I don't really like people. My discomfort with my own species inhibits me to be the environmental advocate need to organize and lead. However, I will try - for you, Nora. I will try to love humanity enough to help to improve the world we live in, so you can have clean water, clean air, and good food, which does not compromise the existence of other species. From this point forward, Nora, I will turn my creative skill to attempt to write the type of fiction and poetry that may help you and future generations. It is not much, Nora, but it is what I can do. I will put my environmental ethics into fiction that teaches.
Perhaps, this letter dosen't make sense. What I want to end with is that I do have hope. I have hope that we can pull together and live as if this planet is not a wasteland, a way station on to somewhere better, but as the promised land. If we can wake up, if we can see the ground on which we walk as holy, we have a chance. We have a chance if we can see that our lives are dependent on the survival of ecosystems vibrant with diversity, diversity that works together to sustain the soulless machine. Nature does not care about us or if we survive. The new Man vs. Nature theme is not surviving nature to live another day. The new theme of survival for Man is to survive a Nature that can no longer support Man.
The video at the top this post asks a good question about the future that we want. This post has gotten off track with your dad's crazy. If I could put forward a manifesto for the future that I want, the one in which I could gift to you, it would include:
1) The end of poverty
2) Clean Water, air, and food
3) A world full of diverse species
4) Natural wonders
5) Peace
That is a tall order. However, you deserve it. You deserve a world rich in wonder. I love you!
Sincerely,
Your Dad.
My daughter, I'm writing this letter to you because you are the joy of my life, and I want your future to posses an environment that is healthy. The generations before yours, including my own, have acted poorly toward the Earth, disrespected the systems that sustain not only humanity but the other species that share it with us. I'm sorry. The problems that we have created will take many generations to correct. It is no longer a matter of wanting to leave you and your generation a planet that is as healthy as the one in which I've had the privilege to grow up in, because that planet will not exist, but to leave you with a planet on which you can be healthy and happy.I was selfish. Instead of studying earth systems and making a difference through science, I studied the art of writing. I believed that literature, stories, could change the world. I was wrong. The way to change the world is to design systems and markets that play on our selfish natures. Just like all other life, we are opportunistic creatures. We are competitive. Despite what your father would like to believe about humanity, alturism, on the level needed to make an environmental difference, does not exist. The only way to motivate our species to provide it with immediate reward.
Still, I feel that there is hope. Environmental Summits, like this one, are a start. They validate the need to take action and to take action now. However, we should not put all of our hope in governments. Governments are made up of people who belong to a different social class, a class that is used to getting what it wants in the short term - money, power, opportunity, etc. If real change, to sustain the livelihoods of the middle and lower classes, is to come about, we have to work locally, within our communities with our neighbors.
My confession is that I don't really like people. My discomfort with my own species inhibits me to be the environmental advocate need to organize and lead. However, I will try - for you, Nora. I will try to love humanity enough to help to improve the world we live in, so you can have clean water, clean air, and good food, which does not compromise the existence of other species. From this point forward, Nora, I will turn my creative skill to attempt to write the type of fiction and poetry that may help you and future generations. It is not much, Nora, but it is what I can do. I will put my environmental ethics into fiction that teaches.Perhaps, this letter dosen't make sense. What I want to end with is that I do have hope. I have hope that we can pull together and live as if this planet is not a wasteland, a way station on to somewhere better, but as the promised land. If we can wake up, if we can see the ground on which we walk as holy, we have a chance. We have a chance if we can see that our lives are dependent on the survival of ecosystems vibrant with diversity, diversity that works together to sustain the soulless machine. Nature does not care about us or if we survive. The new Man vs. Nature theme is not surviving nature to live another day. The new theme of survival for Man is to survive a Nature that can no longer support Man.
The video at the top this post asks a good question about the future that we want. This post has gotten off track with your dad's crazy. If I could put forward a manifesto for the future that I want, the one in which I could gift to you, it would include:
1) The end of poverty
2) Clean Water, air, and food
3) A world full of diverse species
4) Natural wonders
5) Peace
That is a tall order. However, you deserve it. You deserve a world rich in wonder. I love you!
Sincerely,
Your Dad.
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