Past generations took all the trees, polluted all the water, fished all the fish, and hunted all the animals so that there’s almost nothing nice left.

So it’s 2050. If the good people are winning the greater struggle, fossil fuels are a shamefully long chapter of the past, and there has been a full scale awakening to the need for only renewable, clean energy.

What I wish most for you girls is that the care you have shown each other would extend to the big wide world around you.

I hope that the state of the environment becomes a part of everyday discourse.

I promise to do my part. I promise to be the change I want to see in the world, and I hope that you, reader, will do the same.

I know it’s long past time to wake up. You deserve a future in which drought, famine, and war are not all your children ever know; the choices my generation makes now will determine your future.

To think that my choices of sustainable commuting, eating a plant based diet, and working on our City’s zero waste program likely pale in comparison to the impact of not having a baby is nothing short of devastating.  Does it make me a bad environmentalist to honor my maternal instincts?

Is the world really polluted?

A culture of consumption is the reason that my world faces such an ecological crisis, it is both necessary and proper to address the fundamental mindsets that have created such a destructive culture.

May my tomorrow include more attention to these details so that you know that I do care.