To those who come after,

Though I can’t imagine what the world is like in the future, if it has changed at all, I sincerely hope that you’re doing well, and that the political and environmental climates have stabilized around a set of common goals. You deserve to live on a healthier planet, and I have faith that in the years after I write this letter, we’ll be working harder towards giving you the world you deserve. At the very least, you’ll suffer much less from an obligation to repair the destruction caused by those who came before you.

You may still be working to restore our planet to our ideal state. Unless this letter reaches someone a few hundred years from now, you more that likely will be. Yet, I want you to rest assured that we’re working, too. The progress has been slow going to far, with a lot of politicians expressing skepticism about the need for and methods of environmental work. However, we’ve made some headway, as more people who are passionate and knowledgeable about environmental protection and restoration are given a platform to speak from, spreading awareness and strengthening the forward movement. On a smaller scale, many people in the past decade or so have been made aware of sustainability. Sustainability, more of a discipline than it is a science, combines social, economic, and environmental circles with the goal of consuming resources wisely, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. You’re a part of those future generations, and with any luck, you’ll have grown up learning about a variety of sustainable practices. Maybe you have a more efficient recycling system, or power your latest generation Xbox with solar panels. At the very least, I hope you’re not using plastic straws.

I want to leave you a world you can be proud of. I hope that studying and practicing sustainability will allow me, and so many other like me, to do that. You deserve to have chance to see a manatee at least once in your life. You deserve to live on a cooler planet, one that’s not driven into an eventual ice age because of climate change. You deserve to live in a world you can be proud of. I hope that you’ll be sustainable and considerate of the environment in everything you do, if for nothing else than the sake of those who come after.

Good luck.