Dear Great Grandchildren,

If you are reading this, you probably inherited my fascination with ancestry, and the way it uncovers incredible stories of unlikely survival. I was born and you were born only because one of your ancestors, who fell from a the deck of a wooden ship in the 1600s during a gale, managed to grab hold of loose halyard and get hauled back aboard. Without that rope, no you. No me.

I’m so aware that your survival and that of your own children now hangs by a thread. I need you to know I’m doing all that I can. I’m helping climate activists tell better stories, I’m donating to small organisations that are doing astounding work. I’m challenging my inner hypocrite to do better in terms of the way I eat, travel, and consume.

I volunteer. I help design campaigns. I speak up. We never know what impact our lives or actions have. I hope that somewhere along the line, I’ve set some single spark in motion that will make a big difference. That I along with this generation, long dead, have somehow managed to weave a rope dangling into the ocean that you and yours can cling to, survive, and reach a distant shore where you can create a future of abundance and balance and joy for human beings and all our fellow passengers on Spaceship Earth. I’m trying, hard as I can, to be a good ancestor.