Letter to my Granddaughter
“How you live long after I am gone will have much to do with how well we rallied the decent, fearless and scientific minds to face the global crisis of climate change this month in Paris.”
Lucia this is for you, your children and your children’s children. This coming week is historic. Community representatives from all over the world are gathering in Paris to hammer out an environmental plan that will be a defining moment for our planet. How you live long after I am gone will have much to do with how well we rallied the decent, fearless and scientific minds to face the global crisis of climate change this month in Paris. Today I join millions in the streets world wide to demonstrate. A common voice saying I refuse to hand over a world to the future that is not sustainable or healthy.
The population has doubled since I was born. Our life styles began to gobble up earth’s resources, creating one environmental calamity after another. Not so obvious when I was your age. By the time I was 25 ignorance and innocence where swept aside. Earth Day started, a clean air and water bill was legislated. One law mandated after another to protect mother earth from our own ignorance, self-centeredness and self-deception was passed. Our lifestyles and our inability to change them began to make our own life support system sick.
Each of us comes to fall in love with this planet in her own way. Discovering through biology the interconnectedness of every living thing was a profound scientific gift. Knowing what goes in our oceans here ends up on the other side of the world’s oceans. And what goes up into our atmosphere from our lifestyles can only be mitigated by nature for so long.
New scientific knowledge can save us from ourselves. Is there resistance? Always! Power and property, who gets it and how much. Scientific discovery denied, vilified. A vain hope to preserve the failing status quo.
From the depths of my primordial ancestry that connects us, my wish is that the sun you watch rise each day has her energy harnessed. That the air you breathe and the water you drink is clean. All oceans are plastic free, have not risen or created wild reckless weather. All marine life thrives, from her heated vents, corals, krill, octopi and whales of every variety.
With love that reaches the edge of infinity I count on the collective wisdom of mankind to do the right thing in Paris December 2015 for your future.
Great Love Dita
