Dear Future Self,

How’s the middle aged life going? As a 19 year old, I can hardly imagine what it’ll be like when I turn 48 in 2050. I’m sure by then I’ll have witnessed and experienced so much. I will have went through college, gotten a career, made friends, memories, maybe fallen in love…my head spins with all the possibilities.

I’m sure I’ll have also seen the climate crisis worsen and lived through a number of increasing problems stemming from it. This is where I worry. How bad will it be by then? Will where I live now be habitable? Will my loved ones and I have enough food and water? Will society work together to solve any of this? …Will there even be a society left? There are too many questions and they are too terrifying to ponder for long.

I hope that despite all of this, I can find happiness and meaning in my life. I hope things won’t be as apocalyptic as I am currently imagining. I hope I’ll find reasons to have hope at all, as right now I do not have much of it. If you’re reading this in 2050, do me a favor and make the world as good a place as you can for yourself and others, no matter how everything is holding up. I am so happy to have gotten the opportunity to experience life and its pleasures, so experience as much of it as you can even in 2050. Even if climate change ruins a lot, there is always something to fight for.

Thanks for sticking through to this point, and hopefully for many years after.